Historically, crop rotations have been a minor consideration for most row-crop farmers in the region. From antebellum cotton plantations of the early 19th century to sharecropping farms of the early 20th century, cotton and corn were the staple crops with little opportunity for rotations. As in the rest of the South, erosion took its toll on the land and the people who farmed it. Improved pastures and Johnsongrass hayfields became the principal land use of the 20th century until soybeans became the dominant crop of the 1970s and 1980s. Grasslands were converted to large-scale, conventionally tilled, monoculture soybeans with some double-cropping with wheat. Rampant soil erosion ensued until overproduction of soybeans resulted in low commodity prices and USDA conservation reserve programs took most of the highly erodible land out of production. These fields were planted to trees or permanent grasslands. Today, typical crop rotations include rotations of corn>cotton, corn>soybeans, cotton>soybeans and soybeans double-cropped with a small-grain winter cover crop, usually wheat.
Download the tables from Chapter 19.
Table of Contents
- Author and Contributor List
- Foreword
- Chapter 1: Introduction to Conservation Tillage Systems
- Chapter 2: Conservation Tillage Systems: History, the Future and Benefits
- Chapter 3: Benefits of Increasing Soil Organic Matter
- Chapter 4: The Calendar: Management Tasks by Season
- Chapter 5: Cover Crop Management
- Chapter 6: In-Row Subsoiling to Disrupt Soil Compaction
- Chapter 7: Cash Crop Selection and Rotation
- Chapter 8: Sod, Grazing and Row-Crop Rotation: Enhancing Conservation Tillage
- Chapter 9: Planting in Cover Crop Residue
- Chapter 10: Soil Fertility Management
- Chapter 11: Weed Management and Herbicide Resistance
- Chapter 12: Plant-Parasitic Nematode Management
- Chapter 13: Insect Pest Management
- Chapter 14: Water Management
- Chapter 15: Conservation Economics: Budgeting, Cover Crops and Government Programs
- Chapter 16: Biofuel Feedstock Production: Crop Residues and Dedicated Bioenergy Crops
- Chapter 17: Tennessee Valley and Sandstone Plateau Region Case Studies
- Chapter 18: Southern Coastal Plain and Atlantic Coast Flatwoods Case Studies
- Cash Crop Selection and Crop Rotations
- Specific Management Considerations
- Case Study Farms
- Producer Experiences
- Transition to No-Till
- Changes in Natural Resources
- Changes in Agricultural Production
- Specialty Crops
- Why Change to No-Till?
- Supporting Technologies and Practices
- The Future
- Research Case Study
- Summary
- Chapter 19: Alabama and Mississippi Blackland Prairie Case Studies
- Chapter 20: Southern Piedmont Case Studies
- Appendix
- Glossary
- References