DRYLAND CROPPING SYSTEM INTENSIFICATION IN THE HIGH PLAINS:
IMPACTS AND BARRIERS TO ADOPTION
Winter wheat-fallow remains one of the dominant dryland agricultural systems in the High Plains. Long-term experiments have demonstrated that, in conjunction with no-till, intensifying cropping systems beyond wheat-fallow by adding other crops like corn, sorghum, sunflowers, peas, or millet into the rotation can increase profitability, soil health, and overall food production. However, much is still unknown about the effects of cropping system intensification in different soil types, climates, and management styles.
We collected plant and soil samples from 96 fields from 30 working dryland no-till farms and 4 long-term agricultural experiment stations (see figure), in addition to interviewing farmers across a range of cropping intensities, to generate a better understanding of how intensified cropping systems affect:
What did we find? Check out the summary report and publications below.
We collected plant and soil samples from 96 fields from 30 working dryland no-till farms and 4 long-term agricultural experiment stations (see figure), in addition to interviewing farmers across a range of cropping intensities, to generate a better understanding of how intensified cropping systems affect:
- Soil carbon storage and aggregation
- Soil microbial community structure
- The symbiosis between winter wheat and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, and its implications for enhanced phosphorus uptake
- Herbicide and fertilizer use
- Winter wheat and annualized grain yields
What did we find? Check out the summary report and publications below.
| rosenzweig_and_schipanski_cover_your_acres_proceedings_paper.pdf |
| rosenzweig_et_al_2017_intensification_effects_on_soil_c_fungi_aggregation.pdf |
| rosenzweig_et_al_2018_intensification_nutrients_and_yields.pdf |
The interviews conducted during this study identified the barriers farmers face when trying to intensify their cropping systems. Producers who have successfully intensified shared the strategies they employed to overcome these barriers, as well as their motivations for making the transition to an intensified system. Additionally, factors beyond the individual producer such as policy and social networks were examined to assess the macro-scale factors that influence farmer decision-making.
Sociological Results and Conclusions
Moving beyond simple economic rationales to explain a growing wave of cropping system intensification, we provide evidence for a social dynamic shaping the degree to which farmers are willing to intensify. For almost a century, the dominant social body of dryland agriculture ascribed to an imaginary (i.e. a worldview or deeply held understanding) that embedded the use of summer fallow in dryland agricultural practice. The soil health movement served to socially construct a new imaginary that rejects this traditional notion, and gave rise to a new social field of soil health practitioners with different values, perceptions, and knowledges than other dryland farmers. In contrast to the motivations of soil health practitioners to reduce inputs and build natural capital, many other farmers have transitioned to mid-intensity cropping systems for productivist motivations, citing evidence from mainstream research that replacing summer fallow with crops increases total food production. Still, the perceived risks associated with cropping system intensification, reinforced by crop insurance policies, prevent many dryland farmers from moving beyond a wheat-fallow rotation.
To facilitate innovation in sustainable agriculture generally, and cropping system intensification specifically, we suggest strategies like changing the mindset of mainstream agronomic researchers to be more inclusive of long-term viewpoints and profitability strategies beyond yield maximization, which would help to reshape the conventional social fields through existing networks of trust. Additionally, we suggest strategies such as maximizing short-term profitability of intensified cropping systems through market development, which would leverage our understanding of farmer perceptions in their existing social positions to facilitate intensification. A combination of these two types of strategies may help fit sustainable agricultural practices into existing imaginaries, and form new imaginaries that drive sustainable innovation.
See the publication below for more details.
| rosenzweig_et_al_2019_rural_sociology_dryland_intensification.pdf |
Finally, a landscape-scale spatial analysis of crop rotations was conducted to quantify adoption of intensified cropping systems over time and space. This will allow us to assess the current rate of adoption, and speculate about the broader implications of increased adoption of intensified cropping systems for food production, carbon sequestration, and the use of agrichemicals.
What did we find? See the publication below.
| 4rosenzweig_2019_environ._res._lett._14_124088.pdf |
