Quote:
Originally Posted by unclebilly
Drought resistant crops have been used for 30+ years. You don't change the plant variety.
The seed and plant variants aren't what they were even 10 years ago. Cultivation practices aren't either. Agriscience is big business.
I will say that my heavily planted land doesn't support much other than GMO barley, wheat, and canola. When I put some of it back into hay, it took 3-4 years to get an average hay crop off that land. I am actually thinking about putting another 120 acres into hay next year.
Also, alfalfa isn't all that water intensive. It is also really good because it puts Nitrogen back into the soil. I think my alfalfa field did better last year in drought conditions than it did this year in wet conditions. If you flood an alfalfa field with water, it kills it.
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At last, someone who gets it! Water is an input cost to the farmer (either directly, or as fuel/equipment/labor to manage/apply it) The farmer has an incentive to use it efficiently. Water application efficiency on many (most) modern farms is amazing. In some cases it is probably too efficient. The saying goes "we conserved ourselves right out an aquifer". The recharge/re-supply benefits of reduced irrigation "waste" are showing up in aquifers, wetlands, wildlife refuges, and downstream river reaches all over the west right now.
Alfalfa is an amazing plant. Give it the right amount of water and abundant sunshine and the tonnage that can be produced is staggering. Overwater it and your yield falls significantly. Not that some of it isn't. Plenty of weedy yellow alfalfa fields to be found. Those are the guys that make a small fortune in farming by starting out with large fortune. They go out of business and get replaced by guys who know it is a serious business and understand the equation.
Farmers produce the food we all require. They are the single most important part of our economy and the only segment of society we couldn't live without.