Crop yield

“ The portion of the farm reduced in productive power for the moment goes to grass, while the labor and fertilizers are concentrated upon the fields that are broken for grain and vegetables. The removal of all the crop at harvest, and probably the pasturing of after-math, are the only matters of interest that the fields, depleted by cultivation and seeded down to grass, have for the owner until the poor hay yield and the need of a sod for corn draw attention again to them. ”

“ But if the grain is removed, and nothing resupplies the drain of phosphates which it makes from the soil, the soil will in due time, according to the original quantities in the soil, cease to yield grain, although the straw may be admirable. But if both straw and kernel were every year burned upon the [Pg 150] field, as grass and its seed is upon the prairies, wheat would grow for a thousand years in succession. The same is true of corn, of potatoes, and of any annual crop. When the annual growth is restored to the soil, it is repossessed of all its treasure which had been loaned for a season. ”

“ Fertilizers.—Since the tomato is grown exclusively for its fruit, those fertilizers which induce a large growth of plant and foliage are not desirable in the production of this crop. Soils vary greatly in regard to the quantity of available plant food they contain. The use of a fertilizer is determined largely by the character, mechanical condition, and composition of the soil. If a soil is deficient in all the essential elements of plant food—nitrogen, potash, and phosphoric acid—the application of any one or even two of them will not materially influence the yield of the crop. ”

“ The yield for the year gives almost no information about the normal yield over a series of years, but the area planted depends very largely upon that yield. The farmer knows that it will pay, on the average, to sow a certain number of acres, and the area under cultivation is not subject to violent fluctuations, as is the crop reaped. ”

“ The plot upon which wheat has been continuously grown, year after year, for more than 50 years, without manure of any kind, the land merely being kept free from weeds, is in the highest degree remarkable, for it has given over the whole period an average yield of between 13 and 14 bushels of dressed grain per acre, which is more than the annual average yield of the crop as grown in the United States and several other leading wheat countries. ”

“ With crops that can be grown on a wide range of soils the water which the soil can furnish largely determines the time of maturing, the yield, and often the quality of the crop. With such a crop a small supply of water tends to hasten maturity at the expense of yield. ”

“ In growing such dry land crops as barley, beans, buckwheat or dry land rice the soil of the field is at first fitted by plowing or spading, then furrowed deeply where the rows are to be planted. Into these furrows fertilizer is placed and covered with a layer of earth upon which the seed is planted. When the crop is up, if a second fertilization is desired, a furrow may be made alongside each row, into which the fertilizer is sowed and then covered. ”

“ In ordinary farming, “larger crops per acre” means fewer acres planted or sown with grain. It means more summer fallow, more grass, clover, peas, mustard, coleseed, roots, and other crops that are consumed on the farm. It means more thorough cultivation. It means clean and rich land. It means husbanding the ammonia and nitric acid, which is brought to the soil, as well as that which is developed from the soil, or which the soil attracts from the atmosphere, and using it to grow a crop every second, third, or fourth year, instead of every year. ”

“ A given amount of plant-food is put upon the land, which is under a four-years' rotation. One half of it is applied every second year. The corn gets one half because it can use it to advantage. The oat crop that follows finds enough fertility because the soil is good. Next in the rotation is the wheat, and the wheat and timothy and clover plants can use fertilizer with profit. There is no change in its character because it is the soil that is getting the assistance, and not primarily just one crop in a rotation. ”

“ Besides, I have not attempted to estimate the value of raising almost maximum yields, where weather conditions are unfavorable, by such drainage, preparation of soil, planting and tillage as will best suit local and climatic conditions. No crop emphasizes the value of seed selection in such unmistakable terms as corn. The average stand of this crop does not exceed 60 percent, which means that the farmer spends 40 percent of his time in the cornfield without result. ”

“ The planting may be made soon after the usual time of planting corn, or whenever the ground has become warm. The preparation of the soil should be more thorough than that often given the cowpea. Solid drilling of five pecks of seed per acre is satisfactory when the crop is for fertilizing purposes only, and gives an excellent hay on land free of weeds. When the crop is wanted for hay, however, wheat usually will follow, and it is much better to plant in rows and to give two or three cultivations so that the ground may be easily prepared for the wheat.
A seed crop should be grown in rows. ”

“ Every one of these properties of the fertile soil, and consequently every one of the conditions necessary for the growth and development of plant roots, is influenced in some way by every operation performed on the soil, whether it be plowing, harrowing, cultivating, applying manure, growing crops, harvesting, or anything else, and the thoughtful farmer will frequently ask himself the question: "How is this going to effect the fertility of my soil or the conditions necessary for profitable crop production?" ”

“ Investigations have shown that one may go farther and say that one of the most ready means of increasing the crop-producing power of the soil is by adding fertilizers to grass land. The large number of plants per acre enables the plants to utilize the fertilizer to the highest degree, and plowing under the resulting dense sod is one of the most effective methods of enriching the soil. ”

“ Fertilizers are only part of the problem of soil fertility.
2. In this orchard any treatment that has influenced the trees at all has done so in the following order: first, the cover crops; perhaps several years later, leaf color; shortly after, branch growth and circumference increase; and last of all, yield.
3. The reason for this sequence of results is that the treatments, whether chemical fertilizers, manure, or cover crops, have influenced yields chiefly by changing the organic matter content of the soil ”

“ When the seed is ripe the tops can be clipped, and the straw left until fall to mature. You now have your seed and hay in two crops of equal value; in case of clover, you mow the first crop for hay, the second for seed; you in both cases get better seed and hay with less labor and expense than grain crops, at the same time leaving the soil clothed with a coat of straw, for the coming season, which will increase the value of the soil for crops, make fine pastures and fine stock, while it fits the land for fine grain. ”

“ Early maturing varieties can be brought in between main crops of the rotation in warm latitudes. The growth prevents the leaching of plant-food, shades the ground, adds nitrogen to the soil, smothers weeds, and produces material that is valuable as feed for livestock or an addition of organic matter to the soil. When the time that can be devoted to the crop is short, an early variety should be selected because its vines are far more valuable to the soil than an equal volume of a rank-growing variety that is not near maturity. ”

“ The rotation of crops means—taking a surface crop, such as wheat, oats, maize, &c., off the land, and then ploughing and planting a root crop, say turnips, potatoes, &c., &c. One of the best ways to manure a field impoverished by successive cropping without rest or manure is by sowing broadcast some such crop as peas, vetches, turnips, or any quick growing tender leaf plant, and when it is a few weeks old, or when the plants have leafed out well, plough it under and leave the field fallow till the following spring. ”

“ Thus the farmer may apply two hundred pounds of such a fertilizer at a cost of $3.00 an acre, and then harvest a crop of wheat, two crops of hay, pasture for another year or two, plow up the grounds for corn, apply another two hundred pounds for the corn crop, follow with a crop of oats, and then repeat. ”

“ These soils are easy to work, are ready for the plow early in the spring, and if well manured give fair crops in wet seasons. In a dry summer, however, they yield poorly, or fail of crops entirely; and, at the best, they require constant and very heavy manuring to keep them in heart.
Crops fail on these soils from two causes, viz.; want of moisture and want of food. Cultivated plants demand as an indispensable condition of their growth and perfection, to be supplied with water in certain quantities, which differ with different crops. ”

“ This is important since water is generally the factor which controls the yield of crops. At Rothamsted, England, where wheat has been grown for 60 years on the same piece of land without manure or fertilizer, the average yield per acre is about 121⁄2 bushels, while on land in a rotation—but otherwise similarly treated—the average yield was about 26 bushels. ”

“ If the soil is moist and the temperature not too high the young plants are removed from the seed bed and set on top of the apexes in the formed rows. The cultivation of the field during the growth of the crop is sufficient to keep the surface in good tilth and prevent the growth of weeds, grass, etc. Care must be exercised in the cultivation not to draw the earth away from the ridges which have been formed, but to increase their size by drawing the earth more and more toward the apex of the ridge. ”

“ The Illinois Experiment Station has practiced a four-year rotation of corn, cowpeas, wheat, and clover on an experiment field on the common prairie soil down in 'Egypt,' and the average yield of wheat has been only twelve bushels per acre during the last four years, but when legume crops were plowed under and limestone and phosphorus applied, the average yield during the same four years was twenty-seven bushels per acre. ”

“ The stones and small rocks have been removed, leaving the surface of the soil smooth, and allowing the use of the sub-soil plow, which with the under-drains have more than doubled the productive power of the farm. Sufficient labor is employed to cultivate with improved tools, extensive root crops, and they invariably give a large yield. The grass land produces a yearly average of 21⁄2 tons of hay per acre. From 80 to 100 bushels of corn, 30 bushels of wheat, and 45 bushels of oats are the average of the crops reaped. ”

“ These lands represent soil of about the lightest texture upon which wheat can be economically produced under the climatic conditions which there prevail. They contain from eighteen to twenty-five per cent of clay, and are much more retentive of moisture than the best tobacco lands. This type is about the limit of profitable wheat production. These soils will maintain about twelve per cent of water during the dry season. Garden truck is so late in maturing on these lands that there is often a glut in the market when the crop matures, and the crops often do not pay the cost of transportation. ”

“ All that has been accomplished during the period under review may be attributed to improvements in implements for preparing the soil and planting the seed. Wheat is grown year after year without rotation—except in a few cases—on a third or more of our wheat acreage; not one acre in fifty is directly fertilized for the crop, and only a minimum amount of attention is given to the betterment of seed stock. ”

“ The need of suitable soil and proper cultivation has also been emphasised. These conditions are to a great extent under the control of the farmer, whose fault it is if they are not efficiently arranged. But there are other factors affecting the yield of wheat which cannot be controlled, such for instance as sunshine and rainfall. ”

“ On other soils of a sandy nature, or rich in calcium carbonate, such a fertilizer would have little value. The analyst in giving an opinion respecting the commercial value of a fertilizer, must be guided not only by the source of the material, its fineness or state of decomposition, and its general physical qualities, but also by the nature of the crop which it is to nourish and the kind of soil to which it is to be applied. ”

“ The soil in most portions of the North- west is very productive, as is well known by the large yield of wheat and other cereals grown on certain lands for many successive years, without the application of artificial fertilizers. ”

“ Why, my uncles, when they think of planting the old buck field or the widow’s acre into any crop, they first go projecting around in the soil, and, as they say, analyze it, to see what kind of a fertilizer it will require to produce the best results. ”

“ The growth, year after year, on the same soil of one kind of plant unfits it for bearing further crops of the kind which has exhausted it, and renders them less vigorous and more liable to disease. The farmer therefore arranges his cropping in such a way that roots, or leguminous crops, succeed the cereal crops.
It is not only the conditions of growth, but the uses to which the different crops are put, that have to be considered in the case of rotation. Thus the cereal crops, when grown in rotation, yield more produce for sale in the season of growth than when grown continuously. ”