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Strip Cropping
Strip cropping is a method of farming which involves cultivating a field partitioned into long, narrow strips which are alternated in a crop rotation system. It is used when a slope is too steep or when there is no alternative method of preventing soil erosion. The most common crop choices for strip cropping are closely sown crops such as hay, wheat, or other forages which are alternated with strips of row crops, such as corn, soybeans, cotton, or sugar beets. The forages serve primarily as cover crops. In certain systems, strips in particularly eroded areas are used to grow permanent protective vegetation; in most systems, however, all strips are alternated on an annual basis. Dimensions Widths of strips are determined by a number of factors, with the two most important being the average wind velocity in a specific site and the features of the slope, particularly the gradient. Each strip typically ranges from 25 feet (7.6 m) to 75 feet (23 m) in width, but certain conditions may ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strip Farming In Wisconsin, USA, 1957
Strip or Stripping may refer to: Places * Aouzou Strip, a strip of land following the northern border of Chad that had been claimed and occupied by Libya * Caprivi Strip, narrow strip of land extending from the Okavango Region of Namibia to the Zambezi River * Gaza Strip, narrow strip of land along the Mediterranean, in the Middle East * Las Vegas Strip, section of Las Vegas Boulevard South * Strip District, Pittsburgh, a neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania * Sunset Strip, 1.5-mile stretch of Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, California, US * Tarfaya Strip (Cape Juby Strip), a strip of land between Morocco and the Western Sahara along the Atlantic ocean * Toledo strip, formerly contested area between Ohio and Michigan; see Toledo War Arts, entertainment, and media Comics * Strip (comics), a comics anthology published by Marvel UK in 1990 * Comic strip, a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative * Sunday strip, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cover Crop
In agriculture, cover crops are plants that are planted to cover the soil rather than for the purpose of being harvested. Cover crops manage soil erosion, soil fertility, soil quality, water, weeds, pests, diseases, biodiversity and wildlife in an agroecosysteman ecological system managed and shaped by humans. Cover crops may be an off-season crop planted after harvesting the cash crop. They may grow over winter. Cover crops are nurse crops in that they increase the survival of the main crop being harvested. Soil erosion Although cover crops can perform multiple functions in an agroecosystem simultaneously, they are often grown for the sole purpose of preventing soil erosion. Soil erosion is a process that can irreparably reduce the productive capacity of an agroecosystem. Cover crops reduce soil loss by improving soil structure and increasing infiltration, protecting the soil surface, scattering raindrop energy and reducing the velocity of the movement of water over the so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intercropping
Intercropping is a multiple cropping practice that involves growing two or more crops in proximity. In other words, intercropping is the cultivation of two or more crops simultaneously on the same field. The most common goal of intercropping is to produce a greater yield on a given piece of land by making use of resources or ecological processes that would otherwise not be utilized by a single crop. Methods The degree of spatial and temporal overlap in the two crops can vary somewhat, but both requirements must be met for a cropping system to be an intercrop. Numerous types of intercropping, all of which vary the temporal and spatial mixture to some degree, have been identified. Maslin Mixed intercropping, (also known as maslin) is the most basic form in which multiple crops are freely mixed in the available space. Maslin is a common practice in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Georgia, and a few other places. Maslin has been practiced for thousands of years. In Medieval England, farmer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soil Health
Soil health is a state of a soil meeting its range of ecosystem functions as appropriate to its environment. In more colloquial terms, the health of soil arises from favorable interactions of all soil components (living and non-living) that belong together, as in microbiota, plants and animals. It is possible that a soil can be healthy in terms of eco-system functioning but not necessarily serve crop production or human nutrition directly, hence the scientific debate on terms and measurements. Soil health testing is pursued as an assessment of this status but tends to be confined largely to agronomic objectives, for obvious reasons. Soil health depends on soil biodiversity (with a robust soil biota), and it can be improved via soil management, especially by care to keep protective living covers on the soil and by natural (carbon-containing) soil amendments. Inorganic fertilizers do not necessarily damage soil health if 1) used at appropriate and not excessive rates and 2) if they b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prairie Strips
Prairie strips are strips of native perennial vegetation that are strategically integrated into row crop fields. This technique is used in conservation farming to improve biodiversity, and protect soil and water. Native prairie vegetation improves soil stability, reduces soil erosion and nutrient runoff, and concentrates more organic carbon in soil than corn and soybean crops. Research has found that strategically setting aside land in corn and soybean fields benefits biodiversity, water and soil in a greater extent than other types of perennial vegetation. Ten percent of a corn field set aside for native vegetation can reduce sediment movement by 95%. Phosphorus and nitrogen lost through run off are reduced by 90% and 85% respectively. Farmers can take odd areas or difficult-to-farm areas out of production as they integrate native plant species into farm fields as contour buffers and edge-of-field filters. In Iowa, most of the rich and fertile soils have been dedicated to corn an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crop Rotation
Crop rotation is the practice of growing a series of different types of crops in the same area across a sequence of growing seasons. It reduces reliance on one set of nutrients, pest and weed pressure, and the probability of developing resistant pests and weeds. Growing the same crop in the same place for many years in a row, known as monocropping, gradually depletes the soil of certain nutrients and selects for a highly competitive pest and weed community. Without balancing nutrient use and diversifying pest and weed communities, the productivity of monocultures is highly dependent on external inputs. Conversely, a well-designed crop rotation can reduce the need for synthetic fertilizers and herbicides by better using ecosystem services from a diverse set of crops. Additionally, crop rotations can improve soil structure and organic matter, which reduces erosion and increases farm system resilience. History Agriculturalists have long recognized that suitable rotations — such ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canadian Prairies
The Canadian Prairies (usually referred to as simply the Prairies in Canada) is a region in Western Canada. It includes the Canadian portion of the Great Plains and the Prairie Provinces, namely Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. These provinces are partially covered by grasslands, plains, and lowlands, mostly in the southern regions. The northernmost reaches of the Canadian Prairies are less dense in population, marked by forests and more variable topography. If the region is defined to include areas only covered by prairie land, the corresponding region is known as the Interior Plains. Physical or ecological aspects of the Canadian Prairies extend to northeastern British Columbia, but that area is not included in political use of the term. The prairies in Canada are a temperate grassland and shrubland biome within the prairie ecoregion of Canada that consists of northern mixed grasslands in Alberta, Saskatchewan, southern Manitoba, as well as northern short grasslands in sou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Plains
The Great Plains (french: Grandes Plaines), sometimes simply "the Plains", is a broad expanse of flatland in North America. It is located west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, and grassland. It is the southern and main part of the Interior Plains, which also include the tallgrass prairie between the Great Lakes and Appalachian Plateau, and the Taiga Plains and Boreal Plains ecozones in Northern Canada. The term Western Plains is used to describe the ecoregion of the Great Plains, or alternatively the western portion of the Great Plains. The Great Plains lies across both Central United States and Western Canada, encompassing: * The entirety of the U.S. states of Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota; * Parts of the U.S. states of Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Wyoming; * The southern portions of the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dry Farming
Dryland farming and dry farming encompass specific agricultural techniques for the non-irrigated cultivation of crops. Dryland farming is associated with drylands, areas characterized by a cool wet season (which charges the soil with virtually all the moisture that the crops will receive prior to harvest) followed by a warm dry season. They are also associated with arid conditions, areas prone to drought and those having scarce water resources. Process Dryland farming has evolved as a set of techniques and management practices used by farmers to continually adapt to the presence or lack of moisture in a given crop cycle. In marginal regions, a farmer should be financially able to survive occasional crop failures, perhaps for several years in succession. Survival as a dryland farmer requires careful husbandry of the moisture available for the crop and aggressive management of expenses to minimize losses in poor years. Dryland farming involves the constant assessing of the amo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grade (slope)
The grade (also called slope, incline, gradient, mainfall, pitch or rise) of a physical feature, landform or constructed line refers to the tangent of the angle of that surface to the horizontal. It is a special case of the slope, where zero indicates horizontality. A larger number indicates higher or steeper degree of "tilt". Often slope is calculated as a ratio of "rise" to "run", or as a fraction ("rise over run") in which ''run'' is the horizontal distance (not the distance along the slope) and ''rise'' is the vertical distance. Slopes of existing physical features such as canyons and hillsides, stream and river banks and beds are often described as grades, but typically grades are used for human-made surfaces such as roads, landscape grading, roof pitches, railroads, aqueducts, and pedestrian or bicycle routes. The grade may refer to the longitudinal slope or the perpendicular cross slope. Nomenclature There are several ways to express slope: # as an ''angle'' of inc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sugar Beet
A sugar beet is a plant whose root contains a high concentration of sucrose and which is grown commercially for sugar production. In plant breeding, it is known as the Altissima cultivar group of the common beet (''Beta vulgaris''). Together with other beet cultivars, such as beetroot and chard, it belongs to the subspecies ''Beta vulgaris'' subsp. ''vulgaris.'' Its closest wild relative is the sea beet (''Beta vulgaris'' subsp. ''maritima''). Sugar beets are grown in climates that are too cold for sugar cane. The low sugar content of the beets makes growing them a marginal proposition unless prices are relatively high. In 2020, Russia, the United States, Germany, France and Turkey were the world's five largest sugar beet producers. In 2010–2011, Europe, and North America except Arctic territories failed to supply the overall domestic demand for sugar and were all net importers of sugar. The US harvested of sugar beets in 2008. In 2009, sugar beets accounted for 20% of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to live in cities. The history of agriculture began thousands of years ago. After gathering wild grains beginning at least 105,000 years ago, nascent farmers began to plant them around 11,500 years ago. Sheep, goats, pigs and cattle were domesticated over 10,000 years ago. Plants were independently cultivated in at least 11 regions of the world. Industrial agriculture based on large-scale monoculture in the twentieth century came to dominate agricultural output, though about 2 billion people still depended on subsistence agriculture. The major agricultural products can be broadly grouped into foods, fibers, fuels, and raw materials (such as rubber). Food classes include cereals (grains), vegetables, fruits, cooking oils, meat, milk, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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