5 Cropping Systems - Crop Sciences Department

Cropping Systems 49 Thousand acresYear2010195019601970198019902000020 00600010000400080001200014000 CornSoybeanWheatOatsHayTwo crops corn and soybeans have come to domi-nate the cultivated area of Illinois over the past 60 years, moving from 60% of cropped acres in 1950 to more than 90% in recent years (Figure ). Wheat acreage de-clined by about half during this period, to about 1 million acres, while the number of acres used to produce livestock feed oats and hay has declined by almost 90%, down to less than 750 thousand acres. These shifts were due largely to the reduction in livestock numbers in Illinois. Much of the corn and soybeans produced in Illinois is exported to other states and to other acreage reached current levels during the 1970s, and though corn acreage has remained slightly higher than soybean acreage, most fields in Illinois have been managed as a 2-year corn soybean rotation. In the past few years, corn acreage has increased at the expense of soybean acreage, and as a result there is more corn following corn in Illinois.

rotation, at least in the normal sense of the word. Given the clear influence of each crop on the other, it is difficult to accept that conclusion. The corn–soybean rotation is, however, much less complex than are the multiple-crop rotations seen in many parts of the world. But most crop-ping systems develop problems over time, and there is

Loading..

Tags:

  Corps, Problem, Words, Nigp, Cropping, Crop ping

Information