Adoption of cropping sequences in northeast Montana: A spatio-temporal analysis

Abstract

Producers make the decision to adopt a particular agricultural practice within a range of social, economic, environmental, and agronomic constraints. The semiarid regions of the US northern Great Plains are dominated by dryland farming practices and the traditional practice has been to rotate small-grain cereals with summer fallow; however, producers are moving away from this practice. The area of fallow in northeastern Montana decreased by one-third and the area of pulse crops increased nearly six-fold during 2001-2012. We previously identified two key practices that are indicative of regionally changing agricultural practices: (1) the broad-scale adoption of cereal-pulse sequences, and (2) the conversion from continuous strip-cropping to block managed cereal-based sequences. Here, we examined the adoption of these two practices from a spatiotemporal perspective to determine if the observed patterns were consistent with those expected from a priori processes: random occurrence, spread and adoption of the practices due to social interaction as described in innovation diffusion theory, or adoption based on environmental factors. Our results suggest that the adoption and spread of both practices were likely constrained by the suitability of the physical environment. Available water, in particular, exerts a fundamental control on the decision whether or not to adopt either practice. We also found evidence for the expansion of these practices due, in part, to social factors, particularly during the early period of adoption. We conclude that producers made the decision whether or not to adopt these practices primarily as a function of environmental suitability and, to a lesser extent, within the context of social interactions.

Convective suppression before and during the United States Northern Great Plains flash drought of 2017

“…HI low is based on Lytinska et al (1976) and calculated from the sum of dew point depressions (the difference between T and dew point temperature T d ) at 50 and 150 hPa above the ground level. CTP is the energy released by a hypothetical saturated air parcel that ascends from 100 to 300 hPa above the ground level and is thus a measure of atmospheric instability (Findell and Eltahir, 2003a, b) and closely related…”

The surface-atmosphere exchange of carbon dioxide, water, and sensible heat across a dryland wheat-fallow rotation

“…Despite the decreasing trend in fallow area across the North American northern Great Plains, fallow remains common in many regions including major land resource area (MLRA) 52 in north-central Montanathe largest wheat-growing region in the statewhere some 40% of agricultural lands may remain in fallow in any given year. In contrast, fallow has been reduced in northeastern Montana (MLRA 53) by hundreds of kha over the past decade (Long et al, 2014(Long et al, , 2013 as producers have adopted continuous cropping or alternate cropping practices (Burgess et al, 2012;Miller et al, 2003Miller et al, , 2002.…”

Variation in Yield, Starch, and Protein of Dry Pea Grown Across Montana

“…Seed N content was determined following Dumas combustion and analysis in an N-analyzer (Series II, PerkinElmer Inc., Wellesley, MA) (Holmes, 1963), then converted to protein content. Resistant and non-resistant starch (NRS) content was measured according to the method explained by McCleary and Monaghan (2002). The TS was the sum of RS and NRS.…”