Abstract
Crop management in semi-Arid, rainfed environments has many problems. The weather of semi-Arid zones is highly variable (see Bailey, Chap. 3 and Dancette and Hall, Chap. 4, this vol.). With each year, new conditions or combinations of conditions arise. Social, political, religious, economical, and ecological constraints also influence crop production systems. Consequently, each semi-Arid zone has different crops and management systems (see Bowden, Chap. 2, this vol.). A system of crop management that works in one region may not succeed in another. The highly mechanized dryland agriculture of the USA would fail miserably if imposed on an area where people have less access to the support systems necessary for mechanization. Peasant farming systems and methods used in developing countries would also fail if imposed on the semi-Arid regions of the USA because of the lack of human labor resources and the aversion to performing manual work under field conditions. With these thoughts in mind, crop management practices will be discussed that are relevant to dryland cropping in semi-Arid zones.
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Isom, W.H., Worker, G.F. (1979). Crop Management in Semi-Arid Environments. In: Hall, A.E., Cannell, G.H., Lawton, H.W. (eds) Agriculture in Semi-Arid Environments. Ecological Studies, vol 34. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-67328-3_8
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