Green Fields in Winter - the Legacy of Alabama's Old Rotation Experiment (Circa 1896).

In the late 1800s, the Southern U.S. was producing most of the world’s cotton on highly erodible soils with little or no lime or fertilizer inputs.  Continuous cotton with no cover crops was taking a toll from the land and its farmers.  Land Grant Universities and Experiment Stations were just getting started when Professor J.F. Duggar at Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College (now Auburn University) established an experiment to test his theories that agriculture could thrive if farmers would “. . . keep their fields green in winter.”  Thus began Alabama’s “Old Rotation” experiment (circa 1896) the oldest, continuous cotton experiment in the world and one of the first to demonstrate the soil quality improvements of using cover crops.  It was listed on the National Register of Historical Places in 1988 and has continued to remain relevant by initiating conservation tillage, in-row subsoiling, irrigation, and IPM and using data to support topics such as “sustainable agriculture”, “soil health”, and “nutrient use efficiency”.