Application of Water Capture and Retention Principles in a Cropping Systems Context.

The goal of this paper is to illustrate how water capture and retention principles derived from a long-term experiment in the West Central Great Plains can be used to evaluate potential cropping systems for other climatic regions.  First we will dissect the summer fallow period in a winter wheat-fallow (WF) cropping system to illustrate how water capture and retention are affected by climatic and soil conditions.  Secondly, principles derived from the dissection of the fallow period in WF will be applied to more intensive cropping systems in the same climate regime.  Then these principles will be applied to six other diverse climatic situations across the globe.  Each case will be discussed assuming the use of no-till management, so as to maximize precipitation capture and retention in the soil.  Analysis of each of the six climatic regimes will result in a recommendation regarding the value of summer fallow and a recommendation regarding the production of either cool or warm season crops.  Obviously to provide more specific recommendations for each site would require specific information regarding soils, crop markets, and infrastructure.  It is our hope that this paper will stimulate our audience to address potential cropping systems using these principles.