BULLETIN OF THE 



No. 39 



Contribution from the Bureau of Plant Industry, Wm. A. Taylor, Chief. 

 January 20, 1914. 



EXPERIMENTS WITH WHEAT, OATS, AND BARLEY 

 IN SOUTH DAKOTA. 1 



By Manley Champlin, 

 Collaborator and Scientific Assistant, Office of Cereal Investigations, and Assist- 

 ant Agronomist, South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station. 



IMPORTANCE OF THE CEREALS. 



The common grain crops, wheat, oats, and barley, have been one 

 of the chief sources of wealth in South Dakota for a number of years. 

 In 1903, the first year of the period discussed in this bulletin, 3,424,- 

 000 acres of wheat were grown in the State, with an average yield of 

 13.8 bushels to the acre, or a total yield of 47,253,000 bushels. Since 

 that year the acreage has remained about the same, and the yield has 

 approximated 13 bushels to the acre in normal seasons. There have 

 been two poor crop years, 1904, when there was a serious epidemic of 

 rust, and 1911, when drought reduced the crop. The average annual 

 yield of wheat in the State during the 10-year period from 1903 to 

 1912, inclusive, was 12.01 bushels to the acre. 



The area devoted to the oat crop has increased from 706,000 acres 

 in 1903 to 1,540,000 in 1912, or has more than doubled in the 10 years. 

 The total yield likewise has almost doubled, being 52,052,000' bushels 

 in 1912, as compared with 27,267,000 bushels in 1903. The average 

 yield to the acre for the State during the 10-year period has been 26.3 

 bushels. Barley has also more than doubled in importance. The 

 total yield of this crop has increased from 10,656,000 bushels in 1903 

 to 23,062,000 bushels in 1912, the average acre yield for the period 

 being 23.8 bushels. 



It is apparent from these figures that wheat still ranks first in im- 

 portance, with oats second and barley third, but that there is an 

 increasing tendency toward greater diversification and the increasing 

 of the acreage of other crops than wheat. 



1 Cooperative experiments with cereals have been conducted by the South Dakota Agri- 

 cultural Experiment Station and the Office of Cereal Investigations of this bureau for the 

 past 10 years. Sufficient data have been accumulated to warrant the recommendation of 

 certain varieties of wheat, oats, and barley as the most profitable ones to grow in South 

 Dakota and adjacent portions of the near-by States. These data, with descriptions of 

 the recommended varieties, are presented in this bulletin. — Wm. A, Taylor, Chief of 

 Bureau. 



13129°— Bull. 39—14 1 



