Salinity areas. Trouble spots. White deserts. Regardless of what they’re called, saline soils are a problem for South Dakota. White, salty areas where nothing grows are a common sight in fields across the state.
The photo on the left shows a field in 2021 with many areas of marginal crop production which were dragging down profits from the field. The photo on the right shows the same field in 2022. The producer worked with the Every Acre Counts program to take 99.5 acres out of crop production. Those acres were seeded with an alfalfa/intermediate wheat grass mix in the fall of 2021. The orange outline shows a much smaller area devoted to crop production. The total profits from corn on the field were increased by more than $4,500 simply by removing the marginal acres from row crop production.
