SPRING WHEAT IN THE GREAT PLAINS AREA. 35 



Methods covering a wide range have been under trial in attempts 

 to grow spring wheat each year since the station was started in 1908. 

 Practically no success has attended these efforts. The crops have 

 been lost by hail, drought, and soil blowing. In only three years of 

 the six have any yields at all been obtained. In 1909, 9.1 bushels 

 per acre were obtained from summer tillage and 8.8 bushels per acre 

 from ground furrowed with a lister in the fall. In 1913 green manures 

 and summer tillage produced yields not exceeding 1.1 bushels per 

 acre. In 1914 yields were obtained from all methods except on those 

 plats which were exposed to blowing from adjoining fields. The 

 highest yield of spring wheat yet obtained on the station was 13.5 

 bushels on fallow in 1914. 



While feed crops and late-planted crops have been grown here 

 with success, the type of soil represented on the station farm is not 

 adapted to the growth of small grains under the climatic conditions 

 that exist. 



AMARILLO FIELD STATION. 



The soil at the field station at Amarillo, Tex., is a heavy clay silt. 

 It is of the type locally known as " tight land" or "short-grass land." 

 While the evidence is not as complete as could be desired, it appears 

 that the storage of water and the development of the feeding roots of 

 the crop are interfered with by a comparatively impervious layer of 

 soil in the third foot. The soil above this, however, is competent to 

 care for all the water that it has been possible to store, even under a 

 system of alternate cropping and summer tillage. 



The results of six years are available from this station. The year 

 1910 is not included; owing to a forced necessity for changing the* 

 location of the farm, the crops of that year were all grown on land 

 uniform in its preparation. 



Following corn, where the fall plowing is necessarily late, spring 

 plowing has averaged better than fall and exactly the same as disked 

 corn ground. Following both wheat and oats, fall plowing is done 

 early, and has averaged better than spring plowing. Furrowing 

 with a lister has averaged better than plowing. Subsoiling has 

 resulted in exactly the same yields as plowing the same stubble at 

 the same time without subsoiling. 



Green manuring has been productive of practically the same yields 

 as upon land from which a grain crop was harvested. Summer til- 

 lage has succeeded in raising the yields in a marked degree, but not 

 enough to furnish compensation for the use of the method necessary 

 to obtain them. 



