Yep I guess it could be classified as leaverite. Definitely one of our specialty crops here.

I know it must be tough with anything other than winter wheat, even over here spring cereals and canola/mustard are not big moneymakers on typical years.

I really am wondering if legumes have ever been tried down your way. Garbanzo beans and lentils are both fairly drought tolerant, legumes in general dont like heat but they can deal with dryness more so than spring wheat or barley. They grow garbs and spring peas over near walla walla and pendleton to a limited extent, higher rainfall than you I know but the limitation they have is hot weather. Also down in the mini rain shadow near Lewiston I know some direct seeders that grow legumes on about 15 inches of precip but the difference is they typically get a rain month in May.

My theory for an alternative crop in dry areas would be winter lentils seeded on chem fallow, they would get a good start over winter and take advantage of that moisture earlier on before the spring crops could. Also lentils are known to put down extremely deep roots to get moisture, our topsoil obviously turns into rock someplaces but up on top it goes to hard clay fragipan within 30 inches. In the palouse they did studies that found lentils roots at over 5ft deep. Plus weeds wouldnt be as big of deal, I wouldnt think you could have too many broadleaf weeds growing nothing but wheat and fallow.

Marketing would be the main issue along with the harvest and rocks but where there is a will there is a way.

Idea # 2 is camalina, a new oilseed. They started growing it in Montana 5 years ago and they say it goes good in the wheat-fallow areas there. Neighbor here tried some this past year, marginal results but we are probably not an ideal location for it. It is hardy enough to be fall planted even though it is a spring crop, the best results are actually dormant plantings where the seed is drilled in late fall but doesnt germinate until it warms up in the spring. So that might be one that could be planted without chem fallow.

Just the thoughts from a guy that is worrying about an excess of moisture in the coming months rather than a lack of.

Keep up the outstanding pics, you might want to put up a few more of yellow paint just to keep the thread on track.

Here are a couple pictures planting soybeans into the previous years milo (grain sorghum) stalks. A common rotation here is Milo or corn followed by soybeans and then hard red winter wheat right after the soybeans, then back to milo the next spring. We have had enough moisture the last few years to double crop sunflowers or soybeans after the wheat comes off and then follow the next year with corn of milo again. Getting 4 crops in 3 years. A lot of people are going to double stacking which would be 2 years of corn or milo followed by 2 years of beans and then 2 years of wheat. That is about all we can do is 2 years of notill wheat or disease pressure gets too bad. Cover crops are starting to catch on in the rotation to provide residue and keep weeds down as well. This part of the state had been a big milo region, but improved genetics in dryland corn and problems with shattercane in milo have hurt that. I like to see how other parts of the country are farmed too. It varies a lot just within the state of Kansas.
Jim

North Idaho, All of the lentils are not leaving the country just yet. We just had a nice pot of lentil soup Friday night. Boil the lentils with some ham and potatos and serve with warm home made bread. It really hits the spot on a cold Illinois day.
Thanks for all the very interesting pictures of western farming practices. I would like to spend some time out there rather than just drive through.
Chuck in cold snowy Illinois

"Keep up the outstanding pics, you might want to put up a few more of yellow paint just to keep the thread on track." ---NIF

OK......all yellow........and all steel. I promise.

There was a lot of farming on steel out here well into the 90's. As talked about
above, right around here we have a limited amount of moisture, and the timing of it is funky. So.......a wheat/ fallow rotation. Starting in the spring when it dried out enough......plowing. My D5SA pulling 9 eighteens, son Brad at the controls. There is just something about smokin the dirt over with a moldboard plow:



Set of doubles behind a neighbors D5;



D5BSA:

After getting it turned upside down.........hitch up to a spring tooth and get 'er
worked down. D5B:





My D5:

Jim- Thanks for that, I have always wondered what exactly milo was and what it is used for?

CL Bos- yep I agree lentils soup is a good meal, however for some reason that only lentils sold in grocery stores in the U.S. are the one with less flavor. Usually large yellow (brewer) and large red (red chief) are sold here. We used to grow both those varieties but they dont yield as well for us. They dont taste as good as the small ones, especially our spring lentil variety a small spanish brown type "pardina" nearly everyone nearby grows pardinas and then we have our small turkish red winter lentils. These are all exported, when ever we talk to someone that likes lentils we send them a bag of the ones we grow and every time they say the flavor is much better.

check out the difference in the look of the lentils, we grow morton and pardina, you probably eat brewer or red chief.

www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=2426

The alternate plan to so called black fallow was to make trash. Got to see more
& more of it here as the government regulations about run off became tougher.
So, park the bottom plows and break out the disk.



I have done it both ways, and given a choice I prefer to hit the stubble in the
fall ( say Nov) with a light shot with the disk.



Others prefer to wait till spring, as per bottom plowing. The best is to hit it first with a shot of Roundup and delay the tillage. Either way the next step is to get busy with a chisel:

Plowed or trashed, the balance of the summer season goes on about the same.
I preferred to fertilize in the spring. Others would rather do that operation after
harvest. I liked a spring application. An anhydrous applicator tends to tear open
the ground; getting the NH3 in the ground early allowed you to work at keeping
the ground sealed up so you could retain moisture. A D5B pulling a 50 foot double shoot applicator, putting down 60 to 70 lbs of NH3 and 10 lbs or so of
sulfur.



A similar applicator behind my D5, getting ready to start the day.

Fertilized or not.......gotta keep the weeds of of it. Several trips with the weeders over the summer to keep you out of mischief. My D5 with a JD 40 footer;





Mc Kinney Ranch near Fulton Canyon in Sherman Co. Oregon......a classy D6C
with 60 feet of Trash Masters. This Bad Boy is still earning it's keep......new
pictures of it coming this spring:



Calkins Cultiweeder behind a D6C:

OK, so now it's fall and the fun really begins. Time to start putting seed in the
ground. Lots of options here. Up high where I live on Center Ridge ( 2700') it's
pretty easy to hold moisture. If it rains a little, say lat August or early September, the moisture will 'meet' with what you saved over the summer. Then
seeding is pretty simple....work it to kill that last flush of weeds ( especially cheat grass) and head out with the double disks: D6B