AEN 513 Soil Dynamics in Tillage and Traction

TILLAGE IN EXPANDING AMERICA
• Steam power replaces
animal power in the
1860’s
• The internal combustion
engine replaces steam in
the early 1900’s
AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION AND THE
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN THE U.S.
• The application of mechanical power
to agriculture transformed the U.S.
from an agrarian to an urban society
during the 1900’s
• Adverse consequences of extensive
tillage resulted in soil erosion,
dramatized by the Great Dustbowl of
the 1920’s
• In the 1950’s, a new (“notill”) row
crop production methodology
emerged using herbicides to control
weeds and planting crops in killed
sod.
• Other conservation tillage systems
have emerged which utilize crop
residue as surface mulch.
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