The Dirty Thirties’ Legacy – Improved Farming Practices

It is impossible to ensure that rain will always fall but farming practices appropriate to dry-land farming can help to mitigate the effects of drought. The Dirty Thirties were crucial in bringing about those changes.

Some farming practices more appropriate to dry-land farming had long been known. By the 1890s, the Dominion Experimental Farms had recommended the use of summerfallow – leaving a field fallow for a year to conserve soil moisture, and cultivating it to destroy weeds. Experiments had determined that crop yields on summer fallow could be as much as twice that of crops sown on stubble.