#2: [28-May-23]

22-Oct-2000 -- A continuation of my Quest: to visit all confluences around my home in Brookings South Dakota. This is my third visit. Unfortunately, I chose a rather overcast day for my visit.

The confluence is (surprise surprize) in a field. This was one of the tidiest fields I've seen, having been harversted, gleaned, disked and plowed. Nice pretty dirt, with some soybean plant detritus on the surface. Actually, the field was rather smallish for this part of the midwest, where most fields are about a square mile. This one was interrupted by a chruch on the hilltop. Soybeans were grown here most recently, alternating with corn.

This field is quite a contrast to the other fields I've visited. One was freshly harvested (44N 96W) and one was grown using a no-plow method (45N 97W). It has the advantage, I'm told, of composting the cornstalks more rapidly and holding the nutients in the soil better. It has the disadvantage of having more dry soil blow away in a good wind, common in these parts.