Diversification of Wheat-Based Dryland Cropping Systems in the Northern Great Plains: Food Production Potential and Economic Incentive.

The dryland wheat-fallow rotation is the predominant cropping system in the U.S. Northern Great Plains. Due to several sustainability issues and economic imperfection, there has been a growing interest among researchers and growers to diversify and intensify this system. We compared wheat-fallow rotation with an alternative intensified cropping systems (which included wheat, a pulse crop, and an oilseed crop (camelina)) in Montana from 2008-2015. First, we performed an economic analysis by evaluating costs and benefits of each system. Further, we evaluated the potential of each system for food production by considering calorie equivalent of each crop.