ABSTRACT
The Dust Bowl era was the period of drought from 1931 to 1939 that was coupled with severe wind-driven soil erosion of overgrazed rangeland and soil exposed by the use of farming practices not adapted to the semiarid U.S. Great Plains. The eroding soil from once productive range and crop lands filled the air with billowing clouds of dust that subsequently buried farm equipment, buildings, and even barbed-wire fences (Fig. 1); thus, making the living conditions of many Great Plains inhabitants unbearable. On the Great Plains wind is common and drought recurrent; therefore, farm implements and management methods were developed for producing crops under these conditions. Likewise, farmers have evolved into innovative practitioners of soil and water conservation techniques that rely on residue management practices and crop rotations with fallow periods to store precipitation in the soil for later crop use.
