The field equipment sections are the most descriptive I have ever seen. Using practical language and a straightforward format, Steel in the Field presents what farmers and researchers have learned in the last twenty years about cutting weed-control costs through improved cultivation tools, cover crops, and new cropping rotations. Tools are also sorted by their use in managing agronomic row crops, horticultural crops, or dryland crops.
Farmer accounts highlight tool use, management, and adaptation by successful growers.
Each opens with a summary of farm location and size, cash crops, tillage style, cover crops, soil types, rainfall, basic weed-management strategies, and the implements used. Timing is emphasized repeatedly knowing when to put a tool in the field, how to adjust it, and how fast to pull it are all skills that contribute to the complex art of mechanical weed control. Also covered are practices that suppress or prevent weeds reducing weed pressure makes it more likely that mechanical or flame controls can stifle weeds with lower or even no herbicides. Main factors are winter and summer cover crops, delayed planting, improved soil health, and crop rotations. All rights Reserved.