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Updated: May 28, 2025
The points against dry-plowing to which you allude may arise from two claims or beliefs: first, that turning up land to the sun has a tendency to "burn out the humus"; second, that dry-plowing may leave the land so rough and cloddy that a small rainfall is currently lost by evaporation and leaves less moisture available for a crop than if it is plowed in the usual way after the rains.
Is there any scientific reason to support the belief that it is injurious to the soil to dry-plow it for seeding to grain this fall and winter? Will dry-plowing now cause a worse growth of filth after the rains than the customary fallowing in the spring? Should the stubble be burned, or plowed under!
I would like to know whether or not dry-plowing land, in preparation for sowing oats for hay, injures the soil? I have heard that dry plowing tends to wear out the soil, as the soil is exposed to the sun a long time before harrowing. I have been dry-plowing my land to kill the, weeds, but had a light crop of hay this year.
There may be cases in which one will get less growth on dry-plowing than on winter plowing, if the land is rough and the rain scant, and yet dry-plowing before the rains is a foundation for moisture reception and retention if the land is not only plowed, but is also harrowed or otherwise worked down out of its large cloddy condition.
When that is done, dry-plowing may be a great help toward early sowing and large growth afterward. As for weeds, dry-plowing may help their starting, but that is an advantage and not otherwise, because they can be destroyed by cultivation before sowing. If the land is full of weed seed, the best thing to do is to start it and kill it.
The trouble with dry-plowing probably arises, not from the plowing, but from lack of work enough between the plowing and the sowing. Stubble should often be burned: it depends upon the soil and the rainfall.
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