Most windbreaks in Montana provide enough benefits to their 

 owners to make them worth the additional work of maintaining a 

 row or group of trees. However, some Montana farmers have witnessed 

 certain detrimental effects of the trees. 



Complaints may vary with individual farms. One landowner 

 may complain of weeds catching in his shelterbelt. Another may 

 complain that water yielded from the melting snow accumulated by 

 the windbreak has caused soil erosion and gullying. Other complaints 

 have been that portions of fields are not available for early 

 spring work because too much soil moisture holds late into the 

 spring or that the row of trees itself saps more moisture from 

 the adjacent crop ground every growing season than it saves. 



More specifically, the beneficial side, farmers who have 

 planted field shelterbelts have found that trees reduce the wind 

 velocity and thereby help control soil drifting. Trees for 

 livestock protection have proven beneficial by helping reduce 

 feed requirements during the winter months. Livestock protection 

 plantings also help keep stock from wandering away during blizzards, 

 help keep newly born animals from freezing, and help make winter 

 feeding much easier. Other benefits of field shelterbelts are 

 a reduction of the blasting or firing of crops caused by hot 

 southerly winds, less lodging of cereal crops, less shattering 

 of ripened grain prior to harvest, modified air and soil tempera- 

 ture, a reduction of moisture lost through evaporation and 

 transpiration within the crop, improvement in distribution of 



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