Wheat Farming

Why is this wheat farms so large in acreage? What technique results in the strips of fallow and wheat?

Answers:
  • in the Great Plains rainfall is low (semi-arid) and to earn an adequate income farmers must work large acreage to produce enough to stay in business (given the world prices for wheat)
  • dry farming results in alternating strips of land cultivated in wheat and land resting as fallow.
Learn more about farming in the Great Plains:
1) Dry farming was developed in response to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. 2) In areas with sufficient ground water and where farmers have the capital to invest in expensive pumping equipment, center pivot irrigation wheat farming has developed.

UW-Eau Claire Seal

 

Created by Ingolf Vogeler on 30 April 1996; last revised on 07 December 2010.