Dryland farming questions.

I'm taking possession of a farm on the 15th of April that has some dryland. It has been fifty percent summerfallow for the last several years. This year is going to be a very busy year for me so I'd like to do as little work as possible to this land. Personally I'd like to continue with the summerfallow because it seems to produce the best results in this area. My family has tried continuous cropping on dryland with disastrous results in the past. We have a cultivator with shovels for weed control or I could get it sprayed if I needed to.



I'm thinking of just planting barley as I know it a bit and if I plant the right variety it may make malt? If not it can be sold to the farm for feed.

The dryland is located in a fairly remote area almost surrounded by prairie and I'm thinking it might be a good candidate for organic crops but that'll be in the future. I think I'd also like to experiment a bit with tillage radish and see if I can improve moisture retention and such.



These are pretty exiting times for me as this will be my first wholly owned farm, I'm a mechanic by trade but have lot's of ideas. Hopefully I don't bankrupt myself the first year :).



Thanks for any input and ideas, there are allot of very successful dryland farmers out there so I know it's possible.

Dryland farming questions.