How has farming changed over the years?

How has plowing, etc. changed over the years?

• How has plowing, irrigation, fertilization and pest control changed over the years in farming?

• Answer:

  We farm in Oklahoma, and in our area plowing is becoming obsolete as the benefits of No-till are shown, as the guy above me said. We grow corn, wheat, soybeans, and milo and are able to get 4 crops in 3 years this way. We don't work ground at all, unless there are some washouts that need to be repaired, and we just smooth out that area after we cut the crop and before we plant the next one. So, for example, we harvest wheat every year, but instead of coming back and getting rid of all evidence of the wheat stubble, we leave it alone and come right behind it planting soybeans directly into the wheat stubble, because we will harvest them early november (we just got through) if the weather is right, and why waste good moisture like what you get with ground cover from chaff and stubble? Almost all our tractors have GPS and autosteer, they're all powershift, our comines are fairly new and feel like you're driving a rolls royce. Our sprayer goes crazy fast, has 80 foot aluminum booms to make it lightweight, and we can cover a ton of land per day with it. Sometimes we are short handed and hire it sprayed by the co-op or have the plane spray it. My great great grandpa used to plow while walking behind his team of mules with a single plower, like what you see in old pictures. He also used to dig ditches in a method similar to this until my grandpa bought their first tractor. I'd say it's come a long way, when he used to work his rear off from sun up to sun down, and my rear gets tired from sitting in an air conditioned tractor 17 hours a day in the middle of cutting a crop.