WATER CONSERVATION
able. In these cases, the important product pro-
duced by the soil is runoff water.
Summer Fallowing
Most of the world's wheat production occurs in
regions having a subhumid or semiarid climate.
I n the most humid parts of these regions, soils
have enough stored water (water from precipi-
tation in excess of evaporation during the winter
and early spring), plus that from precipitation dur-
i ng the growing season, to produce a good crop of
wheat in almost every year. In the drier part of
these regions, the water deficit is larger and in
most years insufficient water is available to pro-
duce a profitable crop. Here, a practice called
summer phallowing is used. Summer fallowing
means that no crop is grown and all vegetative
growth is prevented by shallow tillage or herbi-
cides for a period of time, in order to store water
for use by the next crop.
After wheat is harvested, the land is left un-
planted. No crop is grown and weeds are con-
trolled by shallow cultivation or herbicides to
minimize the loss of water by transpiration. Dur-
i ng the year of the fallow period, there is greater
water recharge than if plants were allowed to grow
and transpire. This additional stored water, to-
gether with the next year's precipitation, is used
by the wheat. Fallowing produces a landscape of
alternating dark-colored fallow strips of soil and
75
yellow-colored strips where wheat was produced,
as shown in Figure 6.3. In order to explain how
water storage occurs in fallowed land, both evap-
oration of water from the soil surface and water
movement within the soil must be considered.
After a wheat crop has been harvested, the wa-
ter storage period begins. The surface soil layer is
air dry and the underlying soil is at the approxi-
mate permanent wilting point (see Figure 6.4).
Rain on dry soil immediately saturates and in-
filtrates the soil surface, and water moves down-
ward as a wetting front, similar to water moving
out of an irrigation furrow as shown in Figure 5.8.
The depth of water penetration depends on the
amount of infiltration and the soil texture. Each
centimeter of water that infiltrates will moisten
about 6 to 8 centimeters of loamy soil, which is
near the permanent wilting point. A heavy rain-
storm will produce an upper soil layer at field
capacity, whereas the underlying soil remains at
the wilting point (see Figure 6.4).
After the rain, some water will evaporate from
the soil surface. This creates a water potential
gradient between the surface of the drying soil
and underlying moist soil, and some water in the
underlying moist soil will migrate upward. This
phase of soil drying is characterized by rapid wa-
ter loss. As drying near the soil surface occurs, a
rapid decrease in hydraulic conductivity occurs at
the soil surface. Water migration upward is greatly
reduced, and the evaporative demand at the sur-
FIGURE 6.3 Characteristic pattern
of alternate fallow and wheat strips
where land is summer fallowed for
wheat production.