I’ve noticed fields plowed just along the fence at least a hundred times, but I can’t figure out the point. Any thoughts why this is done?
Because it’s difficult to plow through a fence? I don’t really understand what you’re asking.
Are you referring to that last row that goes around the perimeter of a field, perpendicular to the rows on two sides?
that area would be unplanted and so tilled to reduce weeds in that area. ianaf.
It would be wasteful not to plough and plant as much of the field as you can, wouldn’t it?
Stupid qualification here: I grew up next to a corn field, not ours.
Turning a tractor + harrow or planter isn’t like doing a Uie with a Smart car. I think that surrounding row covers up the awkward turns. Plus, seed comes out unevenly in a turn. So, you do a nice, gentle oblong so that you have all the space used in a harvestable manner. Row spacing is important to the picker, too.
tilling equipment might have much more maneuverability and smaller width than the harvesting equipment for that crop. you might be only able to get a certain distance from the fence safely and easily with equipment needed to maintain and harvest the crop. ianaf.
They are not plowed, really. They are cleared of brush for a fire break. Common practice in dry places like CA.
We do it to block any accidental roadside fires from continuing into our fields, e.g. a cigarette tossed from a car. It’s serves as a fire/fuel break, easy and good insurance.
Hmm. IANAF either, but IAAGardener, and tilling soil and then leaving it bare tends to encourage weeds, not reduce them. Tilling brings them up to the sun, dew moisture, etc. and encourages germination.
with farming there is equipment used to plow and other equipment used to cultivate, not sure of the meaning used in the OP. on a garden scale you might use a single tiller adjusted differently. tilling has a wide range of meanings. ianaf.
i think there is tilling to break and loosen the soil to root depth, this before planting.
equipment can also be done for shallow cultivating of already existing weedy plants; the weed plant might be torn apart, the weed roots exposed to drying air and sun. this done multiple times as needed during the growing season.
similar things were done with manual hoes. a deep bladed hoe is used deeply before planting. a shallow bladed hoe is later used between and around plants to disrupt the weeds growing there.
John Mace and calmondo have it right; it’s a fire break.
It’s also because the fencerows are “turn lanes” for equipment. Turn lanes get run over by the equipment more, and it’s hard to keep the levels of seed, chemical and fertilizer qpplication consistent when you go over the same patch of ground multiple times.
rather than waste time and effort to get scraggly, smashed down plants at each end of the field, they simply don’t plant there at all.
A lot of the pastures around here have dirt trails along the fenceline so that the rancher can inspect the fence. The fields tend to be unfenced. I assume that this is to make the tractor work easier, also because a swine proof fence would cost too much.
We kept the area around our barb wire fences bush hogged. Brush can take over a fence very quickly. It’s tough work trying to clear brush out of a fence. We kept a wide area cleared on both sides of our fences. Makes it easier to get in there and make repairs and inspect the fence.
So did the OP really mean to ask “Why are fields not plowed along by the fence?”? Not sure about that punctuation, but…
I’m not sure what the OP is asking either but I’ve plowed many a field growing up on a wheat farm and a field is generally plowed from the outside in, in ever decreasing circles. Perhaps the OP has simply seen fields that had only been started and perhaps that is what is being remembered as a form of selection bias ignoring all the completely plowed, half plowed and not plowed at all fields. Just like most accidents occur withing x miles of home, because regardless of whether your journey is a long one or not, said journey must always travel the first x miles.
Of the several reasons given, I suspect that fire break is probably most often what the OP is actually seeing. This is common even within cities and other non-agricultural areas – Large vacant lots and uncultivated fields, for example, will fill up with dried grass and brush, and are often “plowed” (actually, just cleared) along the perimeter instead of the whole field being cleared. A fire break seems the best explanation in those cases.
The OP is confusingly written. I’m pretty sure by “just” the OP means “only”. S/he is referring to the practice of ploughing along fencelines in otherwise unploughed fields, and presumably the fire break answers are the correct answers.
If that’s the case, I have another answer. I used to do that along my fenceline to prevent it from creating snow drifts.