Watching the combines work on the rolling hills of the Palouse never gets old. We are thankful for the farmers who work hard! No Pain No Grain! www.kestrelcountry.com #nopainnograin 6PSIFDDNF8JJQ8AH
Great video, is it good soil on those Hills? Here in Belgium, a ( small) hilltop is often to sandy . Must be a fine view, seeing sunset from one of those cabs
My family has farmed in the Palouse since about 1865. The Palouse is a distinct geographic region of the northwestern United States, encompassing parts of north central Idaho, southeastern Washington state, and, by some definitions, parts of northeast Oregon. It is a major agricultural area, primarily producing wheat and legumes. Crops include wheat, barley, lentils, garbanzo beans, dry peas, green peas, canola, grass seed, mustard seed, sugar beets, and perhaps a few other crops. Whitman County, Washington is in the middle of the Palouse. Whitman County is often the highest wheat producing county in the entire United State. Depending on the year, it is probably always in the top 5 of wheat producing counties. The soil is very rich, dark brown to black in most areas, primarily the result of volcanic activity far in the past. Most or perhaps all of the Palouse is dryland farming (no irrigation). Topsoil on the top of some hills was reduced in some decades in the more distant past due to certain cultivation practices (like plowing the topsoil down the hills when horses and lower horsepower tractors were used) and soil erosion. This revealed lower quality (lower yielding) clay soil under the rich topsoil. In recent decades (perhaps the past 45 years or so), much attention has been given reducing soil erosion and improving the topsoil on hills by using better practices such as no-till farming. There is also a lot of technology employed to increase efficiency and yield. Here is an interesting graph that shows the ever-increasing wheat production from 1933 - 2007. Wheat production in Whitman County has increase an average of 1.45% per year for those 75 years: www.researchgate.net/profile/William-Schillinger-2/publication/324226706/figure/fig1/AS:612129212227584@1522954385521/5-Long-term-countywide-dryland-wheat-grain-yields-in-Whitman-county-Washington.png
