"Michael Percy" wrote in message
...
Jim Webster wrote:


Michael Percy wrote in message
...
Oz wrote:

Remember humans are not stupid, they learn if they have to. At least
water
would not likely be a limiting factor. The trickyness of cropping when
you
have 90" rainfall pales to nothing compared to cropping when you have
only
below 10" rainfall to water your crop.

I suggest you try it. Personally I reckon it is easier to irrigate to
fetch water in than it is to drain and get it out.

tell us where you practised your 10" rainfed damn grow all system

I have farmed on years it didn't rain 10" and made a wheat crop on stored
moisture. In 15 to 20 inch rainfall areas they raise small grains using
summer fallow where you raise a crop every other year and keep it clean of
weed on the fallow year. It used to be pretty common in the Panhandle of
Oklahoma. It would make a decent (25 bushel 1950) with no fertile or
anything. At the time LPG cost 5 cents a gallon from the dealer or free at
the refinery so costs were low.

I would much rather try to make a living in agriculture in a 10 inch rain
fall area than 90 inch one. I can truck cattle to feed I can truck crops
where it is dry. My mothers family came to Texas in 1874 and are scattered
all over Texas an New Mexico in the 15 to 30 inch rainfall area raising
cattle and none of them are going broke. Going through my great grand
mothers papers we found one bank note for 200 dollars and my grandmother
said that was get her started on a homestead in New Mexico in 1904. It was
the only note in the papers. My mother's niece will be the 4th generation
just taking on the full management of the ranch she is 59. She and her
husband have been working with her dad for 30 years or so but no one retires
until then can get out take care of the cattle.

With Round Up ready wheat and the right kind of soil it would be possible to
raise no till wheat in 10 inch rain fall areas. The soil type would be all
importation it would need a heavy clay subsoil with 12 to 24 inches of good
soil above it so it acted as a bowl to store moisture. Just kill the sod
with chemicals and keep the weeds down and a dwarf wheat when you had enough
moisture to make a crop. Every 1, 2 or 3 years. You could get by a while
with out RR wheat but cheat grass would eat you up in short order.

It would be necessary that there be some rains when the wheat is maturing.
But if the rains come at the wrong time some other crop would do.

Building ponds an irrigating out of them is another option but you need a
steady supply of water. In this country to make money in the third world to
live.

I seriously doubt if it would be an economically viable way of farming.
First you have no infrastructure to market the wheat or for machinery
supply, parts and repair and a cow calf deal works pretty good.
--
Gordon

Gordon Couger
Stillwater, OK
www.couger.com/gcouger