Word: semiarid
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Critics of sodbusting, as the increasingly common practice of slicing grazing lands into wheat farms is called, say that most of the marginal land of the Great Plains cannot support commercial exploitation. With less than 20 inches of precipitation a year, the region is semiarid. These marginal soils, where they are not too rocky or saline, are often too sandy for farming or are packed with calcium and lime. When overturned by plow blades, valuable topsoil only a few inches thick becomes vulnerable to wind and rain erosion; once gone, it takes decades to replace. The sodbusters are either...