Benefits of Intensified Cropping Systems.

At the 2011 Water for Food Conference in Lincoln, Nebraska, Keith Olsen, President of Nebraska Farm Bureau, stated that they had doubled crop production per acre at their dryland farm in western Nebraska. He stated that they did this by implementing cropping practices researched by the University of Nebraska. Keith’s farm operation receives an average of 17 inches of precipitation per year. In Keith’s area, the cropping system was winter wheat-fallow-winter wheat or one crop in 2 years. The cropping system now used is two crops in 3 years with the winter wheat-ecofallow corn, grain sorghum, sunflower or proso millet, pre-winter wheat fallow being the most common. If soil water and crop residue are present in ample amount at seeding or planting time the system can be modified to including continuous cropping. The winter wheat-fallow rotation included as many as nine tillage operations which destroyed most of the crop residue and most of the time dried out the soil to the depth of the tillage operation. Using no-till conserves crop residues and soil water and reduces the E in ET. Soil quality also improves using no-till and wind and water soil erosion are reduced.