

^v 



SUNFLOWER BLOOM OF HUGE SIZE FROM MONTANA 



During the last three years experiments have been earried on at Bozeman, Mont;, whieh 

 have shown that the sunflower fulfilled remarkably well the need for a forage crop which 

 would yield a high tonnage and help control the weeds. (Fig. 14). 



crops will also help to control the weeds 

 but experience has taujjht us that we 

 cannot master them comijletely without 

 a bare fallow or summer-tilled crop. 

 In many parts of the United States, 

 corn, beans, potatoes or sugar beets 

 furnish the cultivated crops that 

 may be grown on a large enough 

 scale to fit into a rotation sys- 

 tem. We are, however, too far from 

 market to grow potatoes in large areas, 

 beans and corn are not adaj^ted to cmr 

 high altitudes. They are too uncertain 

 and too small in yield to be grown to 

 advantage. 



Another problem was to find a forage 

 crop that would yield a high tonnage 

 under our conditions. In the lower 

 valleys alfalfa is the large 3a elding 

 forage crop and it docs very well in 

 most of the high valleys, as also does 

 clover, but these alone would not con- 

 trol the weeds. 



Some four years ago one of our exten- 

 sion men visited a farmer in the Flathead 



136 



Valley in the Northwestern part of the 

 State who was growing Russian Sun- 

 flowers, which were very large ])n)ducers 

 of forage. He suggested to our agrono- 

 mist that he believed this plant had 

 possibilities as a forage plant under 

 Montana conditions. Acting on this 

 suggestion in the simimer of 1915 a 

 small area, about 1/10 acre, was planted 

 to sunflowers in our experimental field. 

 The croj) was planted in rows some 3 

 feet ajjart and grew immensely, pro- 

 ducing over 30 tons of green feed j^er 

 acre. The crop was cut and ptit into the 

 silo, which was being filled with clover. 

 It was put in w'hen the silo was about 

 half full so that there was clover both 

 above and below the sunflowers. Dtu4ng 

 the winter it was fed to our dairy cows 

 which ate the sunflower silage as readily 

 as they did the clover silage and seemed 

 to do just as well upon it. 



The next scas(Mi (1916) we jilanted 3 

 acres of the siuiflowers, planting in rows 

 about 30 inches apart. The crop was 



