Montana road trip

[TexanSam]

If we didn't have the irrigation, it would be like high desert here. mtmuley

I’m an agronomist in the Golden Triangle (Great Falls, Shelby, Havre). There’s a lot of dry land farming that goes on, and it’s pretty common to leave a field fallow every other, or every third year in order to replenish the limited moisture we get.

 

[mtmuley]

I’m an agronomist in the Golden Triangle (Great Falls, Shelby, Havre). There’s a lot of dry land farming that goes on, and it’s pretty common to leave a field fallow every other, or every third year in order to replenish the limited moisture we get.

Peas are being planted also, correct? mtmuley

 

[Gerald Martin]

Another question for the ranch/ farm crowd. Horses. I understand they are used as they were intended, OUT WEST. But what all are they raised for? General purpose ranch horse? Racing?

I stress the OUT WEST, because back east, horses eat money and shit work. Just my opinion.

Try saying that to a horse gal…. I happen to agree with your opinion though.

 

[Mule Kick]

You drove right past my place, an hr east of Missoula. Glad you enjoyed it!
Don’t forget winters are terrible here..

 

[TexanSam]

Peas are being planted also, correct? mtmuley

Yes, I don’t work with peas much, but iirc the price isn’t great so there’s reduced acres this year. Plus with the early spring, most everything is already in the ground by now.

 

[antlerradar]

I stress the OUT WEST, because back east, horses eat money and shit work. Just my opinion.

No different out west. But people love them and money and work do not matter when you love something.

 

[antlerradar]

In regards to the irrigation, it’s just so different from here in PA. It makes me wonder about the agriculture out west before it came along. Namely, have farmers changed the crops they plant because they can irrigate? Has farm/ranch size changed in connection with the ability to irrigate? Just curiosities run amok.

The first irrigation systems were all gravity flow, The landowner would start the ditch far enough up stream so that you could with a ditch with less gradient than the river just let the water flow on to the fields. This worked best where there is plenty of fall in the river. In eastern Mt where there is not much elevation change, the farmer would often have to start the ditch miles upstream from the fields and have a dam in the river. The dam and the extra ditch were very expensive to maintain. There was also a lot of ditch loss of water. Our original pre 1900 ditch was close to three miles long before it got to the first fields. My father was a boy when we quit using it in the 50's. At the intake there was two 36 inch head-gates, by the time the water got to the fields the water volume was maybe half because the first mile of ditch went through a lot of gravel. The dam was combination of rocks, logs and willow sticks bundled together with rope. Every time the river flooded the dam would wash out and would have to be rebuilt. It was very expensive then and with today's regulation, the cost would be too much to even think of going back. Most people have gone to pumping the water instead of gravity flow ditches. However there as still a few gravity flow ditches in use where there is enough river gradient that you do not need a dam and T& Y irrigation district near Miles City has a concrete dam. Most farmers have gone to pumping water into a ditch or sprinkler systems. Pumps come in all different sizes. The pump @cgasner1 mentioned will pump around 7500 gallons a minute give or take depending on the river elevation. There are pumps that will do much more. Sprinkler systems are sold as using a lot less water, but this really isn't true, Plants use water, ditch systems and sprinkler systems deliver the water to the plants. What the plants do not use, evaporates into the air or ends up back in the river. Because sprinklers deliver considerably less water it is economical to irrigate places much higher in elevation above the river than you ever could with a ditch system.