HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Abstract Full Text Free Full Text (PDF) Free Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Google Scholar Articles by Schillinger, W. F. Articles by Papendick, R. I. PubMed Articles by Schillinger, W. F. Articles by Papendick, R. I. Agricola Articles by Schillinger, W. F. Articles by Papendick, R. I. Related Collections History Soil Conservation Dryland Cropping Systems Wheat

Then and Now: 125 Years of Dryland Wheat Farming in the Inland Pacific Northwest

^a Dep. of Crop and Soil Sciences, Washington State Univ., Dryland Research Station, P.O. Box B, Lind, WA 99341
^b USDA-ARS (retired), 201 Johnson Hall, Pullman, WA 99164. Mention of product and equipment names does not imply endorsement

View larger version (30K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Fig. 1. The low (150- to 300-mm annual) precipitation zone of east-central Washington and north-central Oregon covers 1.56 million cropland hectares and is, by far, the largest contiguous cropping zone in the western United States. The Inland Pacific Northwest intermediate (300- to 450-mm) and high (450- to 600-mm) precipitation cropping zones are mostly to the east of the low-precipitation zone.

View larger version (34K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Fig. 2. Long-term average county-wide dryland wheat grain yields for Adams County, Washington, and Sherman County, Oregon, superimposed with crop-year precipitation from Lind, WA, and Moro, OR. Data show that grain yield in both counties has increased by an average of 28 kg ha–1 yr–1 since reliable county-wide grain yield data became available in the late 1920s. Long-term average precipitation is 242 mm at Lind and 288 at Moro. The average value of wheat produced in the dryland region in Fig. 1 exceeds $300 million annually. Yield data are from USDA-NASS (2007) and Oregon State University (Sandy Macnab, personal communication, 2006). Precipitation data are from the WSU Dryland Research Station at Lind and the OSU Sherman Station at Moro.

View larger version (21K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Fig. 3. Mean monthly precipitation (80 yr) and pan evaporation (75 yr) at Lind, WA, and Moro, OR. Numbers above individual bars are mean monthly maximum and minimum air temperature (°C).

View larger version (96K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Fig. 4. An early stationary grain thresher powered by 12 horses. Note the conveyor system at the back of the thresher for elevating straw to the top of the pile. Steam engines had almost completely replaced horses to power threshing machines by the turn of the century. Photo from Brumfield (1968).

View larger version (154K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Fig. 5. (a) Cutting and loading wheat in the field with a header into a header wagon for transport to a threshing site. The header is equipped with a reel that lays the wheat stalks across a reciprocating sickle bar for cutting standing grain and onto a canvas platform for elevating into the wagon. It is ground driven, cuts a swath 3.5 to 6 m wide, and is pushed from the rear by six horses. Photo courtesy Terry Olson family, Ritzville, WA. (b) Stationary threshing. The wheat spikes and straw on the header wagon lay on a rope netting that holds the load together as it is lifted off by the derrick with a rope and pulley and dropped beside the thresher. From there it is hand pitched into the thresher that separates the grain from straw with grain fed into sacks and the straw blown into a pile. The thresher is belt powered by a steam engine that burns wheat straw. This mode of harvesting required up to 30 men to operate and was common during the last decades of the 1800s and was replaced by the combine in the early 1900s. Photo from Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, Spokane, WA, L83-113.48.

View larger version (156K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Fig. 6. Thirty horses pull a 9-bottom moldboard plow near Ione, OR, in March 1924. This team was able to plow about 10 ha d–1. Note the lack of crop residue even before the soil is plowed. Photo from Brumfield (1968).

View larger version (81K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Fig. 7. The spike-tooth harrow was commonly used to control weeds in summer fallow before the advent of the rotating rodweeder (see Fig. 10). Most early farmers thought it was necessary to pulverize the surface soil to maintain soil water during summer fallow. Those who pulverized the surface soil were considered good farmers. The combination of primary spring tillage with a moldboard plow followed by repeated harrowing operations to create a soil surface devoid of residue, clods, and roughness led to massive and recurrent wind erosion. Photo from Adams County Historical Society (1986b).

View larger version (101K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Fig. 8. A stationary (i.e., nonrotating) rodweeder that had two rods spaced 1 m apart. By walking forward on the plank, the driver tilted the front rod down underneath the soil as seen here. When the front rod became plugged with weeds or residue, the driver stepped to the end of the plank to bury the second rod and raise and clear the first rod. The driver needed to tilt the rodweeder back and forth several hundred times during the day. Plugging during rodweeding was eliminated with the introduction of the rotating rodweeder in 1907 (see Fig. 10). Photo from Brumfield (1968).

View larger version (84K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Fig. 9. An early model hoe grain drill with rows spaced 20 cm apart. Seed was dropped through rotating flutes in the seed box down tubes behind the openers to the soil surface. Chains were attached behind each tube to lightly cover the seed with soil. Photo from Brumfield (1968).

View larger version (116K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Fig. 10. The rotary rodweeder is an essential implement used to control Russian thistle and other weeds in summer fallow. Typically, two or three rodweeding operations are required from May through August. The rodweeder is ground-powered and has a 2-cm square rod that rotates opposite the direction of travel at a depth of 7 to 10 cm with little disturbance to surface residue. A 30-horsepower International TD 9 crawler tractor pulls 10 m of rodweeder in this 1965 photo. Photo from Washington Association of Wheat Growers, Ritzville, WA.

View larger version (272K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Fig. 11. (a) Sacking wheat off the stationary thresher in 1909. Each sack was sewn by hand, which required skill and effort to keep pace with threshing. A sack of wheat averaged 55 kg and each had to be stacked, loaded, unloaded, and stacked again manually during transport to the warehouse for export. Sacking was standard until the 1930s when it shifted to bulk handling. Photo from Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, Spokane, WA, L86-48.62. (b) Beginning the haul of sacked wheat from the farmstead to the railhead with two wagons in tandem drawn by eight mules. Wagon beds were 5 m long and could carry up to 60 sacks, but 40 sack loads were more common. Hauling wheat was a major chore after harvest and for some it took several months or until Christmas. For many farmers the distance to the warehouse required several days for a round trip. Photo from Sherman County Historical Society, Moro, OR.

View larger version (183K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Fig. 12. (a) The ground-driven, horse-drawn combine replaced the stationary thresher (see Fig. 5b) in earnest about 1910. The larger machines with 6-m headers required a four- to six-man crew and 27 to 34 horses or mules. Straw was spread on the ground and grain was sacked and piled into small stacks of four or five sacks in the field before hauling to warehouses. Photo from Brumfield (1968). (b) Gasoline engines began to replace the ground-drive combine in the late teens that reduced manpower requirements and horses by about one-third. Photo from Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, Spokane, WA, L93-62.10.

View larger version (11K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Fig. 13. Average October price for soft white common wheat in Portland, OR, from 1907 to 2006. The cost of shipping wheat to Portland is deducted from the price farmers received for their wheat. In 2007, farmers paid $13.60 and $9.37 Mg–1 in Adams County, Washington, and Sherman County, Oregon, respectively, to transport their wheat to Portland (multiply by 0.027 to get the cost per bushel of wheat). Data are from USDA-NASS (2007), compiled by Sandy Macnab, Oregon State University Extension, Moro, OR.

View larger version (252K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Fig. 14. (a) This farmer in 1930 was an early convert to bulk grain harvesting. Handling grain in bulk instead of sacks dramatically reduced manpower requirements and heavy labor. An early model 30-horsepower crawler pulls the gas-powered combine. Photo from Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, Spokane, WA, L89-35. (b) Unloading bulk wheat at a grain elevator during the 1930s. The front of the truck was raised by a mechanical lift. Photo from Special Collections, Washington State Historical Society.

View larger version (137K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Fig. 15. The first self-propelled combine available to wheat farmers was the Massey Harris Co. Model 21. Manufacture of this machine began in 1939. The combine had a 4 m wide header and could harvest about 12 ha d–1. Photo from Adams County Historical Society (1986a).

View larger version (183K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Fig. 16. (a) Development of the deep-furrow split-packer John Deere HZ drill in the mid-1960s was a major advancement for winter wheat–summer fallow farming because seed could be placed up to 18 cm below the surface into moist soil. This allowed farmers to establish wheat early (late August to early September) for optimum grain yield potential. (b) Deep furrows spaced 41 cm apart help minimize the soil cover over the seed, but winter wheat seedlings still have to elongate through 10 to 15 cm of soil to reach the surface. The drags behind the drill are sometimes used to help stabilize the furrow and reduce the thickness of soil covering the seed. Photos by W.F. Schillinger.

View larger version (95K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Fig. 17. Farmers gather to harvest ‘Moro’ winter wheat in July 1971 for a neighbor who is sick, has passed away, or otherwise unable to harvest his crop. Wheat farmers have a long tradition of helping each other in time of need. These combines had 6 to 7 m wide headers and could harvest 20 ha d–1. Moro was the number one wheat grown in the low-precipitation zone from 1966 through the 1970s due to its excellent ability to emerge from deep planting depths in summer-fallowed soils. Photo from Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, Spokane, WA, L93-62.24.

View larger version (70K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Fig. 18. A modern Flexi-coil no-till drill delivers seed and fertilizer in one pass through the field. This 11 m wide drill has an attached tank cart that carries seed in one section and granular starter fertilizer in the other section. Aqua NH3–N, carried in the 3800-L tank at the end, is pumped forward and delivered slightly to the side and below the seed. Photo by W.F. Schillinger.

View larger version (153K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Fig. 19. (a) A modern 375-horsepower Caterpillar 85E crawler tractor pulls a 3800-L tank filled with aqua NH3–N, and a Haybuster undercutter during primary spring tillage plus N fertilizer injection near Lind, WA. The 11 m wide implement is operated at 10 km h–1 and covers about 75 ha d–1. The tank needs to be refilled with aqua NH3–N every hour. (b) The wide, narrow pitch, and overlapping V-blades on the undercutter implement slice below the surface with little soil lifting or disturbance of surface residue, but completely sever soil capillary continuity to halt upward movement of liquid water to maintain seed-zone moisture in summer fallow. Note the standing stubble that is much more effective than flattened stubble for wind erosion control. This represents the best technology currently available for profitable and environmentally sound winter wheat–summer fallow farming in the low-precipitation zone of the Pacific Northwest. Photos by W.F. Schillinger.

View larger version (85K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Fig. 20. A new John Deere 9760 level-land combine with 10-m header unloads wheat on the go near Ritzville, WA, in July 2006. The grain yield of soft white winter wheat in this field averaged 3220 kg ha–1. The combine operated at a speed of 8 km h–1 and harvested 6.7 ha h–1. Farm machinery costs have skyrocketed in recent decades. This combine was rented from an equipment dealer for $150 separator h–1. The price of a new machine is $250,000. Photo by Derek Schafer.

View larger version (155K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Fig. 21. Wheat grain yields in 1975 (and in other years) exceeded elevator storage capacity. This 34,000 Mg (1.25 million bushel) wheat pile at Lind, WA, set a world record at the time for most wheat stored outside in a single pile. The wheat was destined for export and was shipped or covered before fall rains began. Photo from Union Elevator and Warehouse, Lind, WA.

View larger version (131K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Fig. 22. Soft white wheat is barged down the Snake and Columbia Rivers and then loaded on ocean-going ships in Portland, OR, for export to Asia and other continents. Photo by Miles Hochstein.