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ARS Home » Plains Area » Mandan, North Dakota » Northern Great Plains Research Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #237050
Title: Soil and Water Conservation Advances in the Northern Great Plains

Author
item Tanaka, Donald
item LYON, DREW - UNIV OF NE, SCOTTSBLUFF
item MILLER, PERRY - Montana State University
item Merrill, Stephen
item MCCONKEY, BRIAN - AGRI & AGRI-FOOD, CANADA

Submitted to: Book Chapter
Publication Type: Book / Chapter
Publication Acceptance Date: 6/5/2009
Publication Date: 5/12/2010
Citation: Tanaka, D.L., Lyon, D.J., Miller, P.R., Merrill, S.D., Mcconkey, B.G. 2010. Soil and Water Conservation Advances in the Northern Great Plains. p. 81-102. In: T.M. Zobeck and W.F. Schillinger (eds.) Soil and Water Conservation Advances in the United States. SSSA Spec. Publ. 60. SSSA, Madison, WI.

Interpretive Summary: Advances in soil and water conservation techniques and practices in the northern Great Plains over the last century have altered present day crop production and agriculture. Homesteaders began settling the land in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s and brought with them implements they had used in higher precipitation environments. During these early years, the use of crop-fallow systems helped to stabilize crop yields, control weeds, store soil water, and make nutrients available for succeeding crops. Dust mulching was a recommended soil water conservation technique for fallow. This technique used intensive inversion-type tillage implements to create a vapor barrier that reduced crop residue soil coverage and soil water evaporation. However, dust-mulch fallow left the soil prone to severe soil erosion and soil water storage during fallow seldom exceeded 20%. Stubble-mulch tillage, reduced-tillage, and no-tillage fallow enhanced residues on the soil surface to control soil erosion and improve soil water storage. Soil water storage during fallow using reduced-tillage and no-tillage approached 40%, but 60% was still being lost to evaporation. Annual cropping using opportunity cropping and dynamic cropping system techniques reduced soil water loss to evaporation. Future research to improve water use and conservation may need to focus on non-crop niches in annual cropping systems to improve agricultural sustainability.

Technical Abstract: “Great American Desert” is what many maps often call the Great Plains of North America. This is where dryland agriculture practices for North America have their roots. The purpose of this part of the book was to determine the advances in soil and water conservation technology over the past century and how these practice have evolved to present day agricultural systems that use precipitation more efficiently in the northern Great Plains. The northern Great Plains includes Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba in Canada, as well as Nebraska, Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Montana in the United States. The interaction of parent material-native vegetation-climate resulted in soils in the Mollisol order. Many of the early settlers to this region came in the late 1890’s and early 1900’s from eastern areas that had greater precipitation and longer growing seasons. Settlers brought their tillage tools, cropping systems, and seeds during a period of time that was considered a wet cycle (1895-1910). When weather conditions turned dry, their eastern cultural practices were not resilient and prone to crop failure. One of the first strategies to help stabilize crop yields and reduce the risk of crop failure during drought periods was crop-fallow. Summer fallow, the practice of leaving land idle and controlling weeds with tillage, started in the late 1920’s or early 1930’s with 2.1 million ha and reached a peak in the late 1960’s with 16.6 million ha. Soil erosion was a serious problem on summer fallow lands; therefore, better soil and water conservation practices have been developed and currently we have only 5.74 million ha of summer fallow. The reductions in summer fallow can be attributed to conservation tillage (no-till and minimum- or reduced-tillage) and changes in cropping systems. Present day dynamic cropping systems for soil and water conservation rely on responsiveness to environmental factors. The Crop Sequence Calculator was designed to improve response time for research, extension, consultants, and producers. In the future, cropping systems will not only need to take advantage of crop sequencing but will also promote synergism by using cover crops, interspecies seeding, relay crops, and possibly livestock. These systems will have enhanced soil attributes that make them more resilient.