The Answer My Friend Is Blowin' In The Wind

These pics would be an accurate depiction of dirt blowing from a field a la "Dust Bowl" conditions. It's dry, and Friday the fifteenth we had gust up to seventy mph. Better farming practices keep Kansas in Kansas rather than sending our land to Oklahoma or Nebraska. Normally, most farmers leave quite a bit of crop residue on top of the ground to "hold" it during high winds like this. I've mentioned before how we summer fallow - but it bears repeating. Dryland farming practices include letting the field lie fallow for a year in order to build up moisture and regain nutrients from the residue turning back into soil.

The residue of the old crop, aka trash, also helps hold moisture. After the crop is harvested, instead of folding the soil over to bury the residue, we use sweep plows to undercut the weeds to kill them and keep them from sapping the valuable moisture, leaving the top covered. Someone who continuous crops would want to be rid of the residue tuit suite so they could plant something right away. A lot of trash can cause drills to ball up - the trash catches the drills like a knot of hair would in a comb. So, irrigators go for the bald look right away. That is what happened here - the dirt is blowing from a center pivot circle that is ready for fall planting, so there really isn't enough trash to hold the ground.

Of course, roofs are missing shingles, branches have been blown from trees, the power, phone and internet were intermittent, and there were several wrecks. It was definitely too windy for oversize loads, so we were all parked. Which bothered me not in the least - when it's blowing cow wagons and vans over, it's too windy for the sail like loads we haul.