UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 





BULLETIN No. 1039 i 



Contribution from the Bureau of Plant Industry 

 WM. A. TAYLOR, Chief 



^'V^^JV- 



Washington, D. C. 



May 5, 1922 



EXPERIMENTS WITH CEREALS ON THE BELLE 

 FOURCHE EXPERIMENT FARM. 



. By John H. Martin, Agronomist, Offlce of Vereul Investigations. 



CONTENTS, 



Fage. 



The cereal experiments 1 



Description of the field station 2 



Location 2 



History of the region 3 



Soil 4 



Native vegetation 4 



Climatic conditions 5 



Experimental methods 11 



Preparation of the land 11 



Plat experiments 11 



Nursery experiments 12 



Experiments on dry land 13 



Experiments with wheat 18 



Experiments with oats 27 



Experiments with barley __ 32 



Page. 



Experiments on dry land — Continued. 



Experiments with minor cereals- 36 



Comparison of grain crops 41 



Experiments with flax - 42 



Experiments on irrigated land 45 



Experiments with wheat 46 



Experiments with oats 52 



Experiments with barley 56 



Experiments with minor cereals- 59 

 Experiments with grain mix- 

 tures 62 



Comparison of grain crops 64 



Experiments with flax 65 



Tillage experiments 69 



Summary 70 



THE CEREAL EXPERIMENTS.^ 



The investigations with cereals on the Belle Fourche Experiment 

 Farm have consisted chiefly of varietal, rate-of-seeding, date-of- 

 seeding, and depth-of-seeding experiments, and the improvement of 

 cereal varieties by the head-selection method. From 1907 to 1911 the 



1 The experiments here reported were conducted on the Belle Fourche Experiment Farm, 

 near Newell, S. Dak., during the 13-year period from 1907 to 1919, inclusive. The experi- 

 ments were in cooperation with the Offlce of Western Irrigation Agriculture of the Bureau 

 of Plant Industry, by whom the farm is operated. On April 1, 1912, the cooperative 

 agreement between the Offlce of Cereal Investigations of the Bureau of Plant Industry 

 and the South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station was expanded to include the 

 work at Newell. Mr. Cecil Salmon was in charge of the experiments from 1907 to 1913, 

 inclusive ; Mr. E. M. Johnston and the writer in 1914 ; the writer in 1915, 1916, 1917, 

 and part of 1918 ; and Mr. A. D. Ellison in 1919. Valuable assistance during this period 

 has been rendered by Mr. Beyer Aune, farm superintendent, and Mr. O. R. Mathews, 

 assistant in dry-land agriculture, of the Belle Fourche Experiment Farm. Acknowledg- 

 ment is here made of the assistance of those mentioned above. 



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