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University of Wyoming
 

NARROW FALLOW AND WIDE-ROW PLANTING FOR WINTER PRODUCTION AND SOIL CONSERVATION IN SOUTHEAST WYOMING

(WYO-00584)

The primary objective of the project is to acquire a Real-time Kinetic Global Positioning System (RTK-GPS), an automatic steering and guidance system for farm equipment, and a laptop computer for on-site data processing. With this equipment research will be initiated into innovative precision agriculture alternatives to the erosion-prone wide-strip (110-150 feet) dryland wheat production system of the Central Great Plains. Following acquisition of the equipment, research will be initiated to evaluate the effectiveness of no-till narrow fallow and no-till wide-row wheat cropping in: reducing erosional soil loss, weed suppression, increasing soil organic matter, improving soil fertility, improving water use efficiency, and increasing profitability relative to conventional wide strip wheat/fallow cropping. We will apply RTK-GPS technology to existing agricultural equipment in planting, weed suppression, fertilization, and harvest of wheat in the proposed alternative cropping systems and evaluate its profitability compared to the conventional wheat-fallow system.