Alternative Cropping Systems for Central Montana Shallow Soils.

For dryland crop production in semiarid central Montana, farmers traditionally adopted the fallow-wheat cropping system to conserve soil moisture for stabilized wheat yields. However, this system has low precipitation use efficiency, and the excessive water stored during the fallow period may carry nitrate and salts into groundwater or causing saline seeps. Alternative continuous cropping systems, which use pulse and oilseed crops in rotation with wheat to eliminate fallow period, have been studied. In this paper, we present the benefits and challenges of the alternative cropping systems compared with traditional fallow-wheat system under no-till and tilled fields.