File:Sorghums - sure money crops (1914) (14593219948).jpg

Identifier: sorghumssuremone00borm (find matches)
Title: Sorghums : sure money crops
Year: 1914 (1910s)
Authors: Borman, Thomas Allen, 1872-
Subjects: Sorghum
Publisher: Topeka : The Kansas Farmer Co.
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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precipitation, likefeed, can be carried over from year to year. The storageof water in the soil is a continuous operation and theresults are cumulative. Filling the soil with moisture inyears of plenty and conserving it for the year of shortrainfall should be a year after year practice. Rainfall and Crop Production. The crop-producingpower of rainfall is interesting, and a study of which willreveal the extent to which rainfall is used or in factwasted. It requires 45 tons of water to produce a bushelof wheat and the straw thereof. But comparing thisrequirement with rainfall measured in inches, it is notso great. Water one inch deep over an acre of landweighs 113 tons. If this inch of water could be whollyused by the plant it would produce 2.5 bushels of wheat.In a year of 20 inches of rainfall, then, there is watersufficient to produce 50 bushels of wheat per acre, pro-vided, of course, it could all be used by the wheat plant.To use all the rainfall is impossible. But, if one-half of
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THE LAND OF GRAIN SORGHUMS 15 the rainfall can be stored—and it seems this can be donein good farm practice—and of that stored at least one-half can be used by the wheat plant, then that portionof Kansas having a 20-inch rainfall should produce anaverage of 12.5 bushels of wheat per acre instead of lessthan six bushels. It is apparent that the yield could befurther increased as cultural methods become more ef-fective. There is no disputing the fact that throughoutthe sorghum belt the waste of moisture is unnecessarilygreat, and for a section so dependent upon the maximumuse of the precipitation, the prevailing cultural methodsseem recklessly extravagant. It is certain that the farm-ers ability to store water and control evaporation marksthe difference between success and failure. Comparative Water Requirements of Crops. The relative water requirements of various crops were inves-tigated by the Federal Department of Agriculture atAkron, Colorado, Amarillo and Dalhart, Texas, during

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