DRY LAND FARMING

There were a few crops raised in the Sacramento Valley of northern California without the need for irrigation.   Barely, safflower and wheat were generally the crops that were planted in the late fall and early spring that were totally dependent on winter and spring rains.    Many of these crops were raised in the foothills along the westside of the Sacramento Valley.   Ground preparation took place in the spring when the soil was easy to turn over with a moldboard plow and left fallow through the summer months.   In the fall the plowed fields were disked, harrowed and planted with barely or wheat during November and December.   Safflower was planted in the spring and only required a couple inches of rain.   Safflower is used for its oil, both in the pharmaceutical business and for cooking oil.   Barley was mostly used as a feed grain for livestock and some for brewing of beer.  Most of the wheat was exported.   In the summer of 1962, I worked for a couple of weeks for Joe Stutz, who was farming on the Holmes Ranch west of  Willows, in northern California.  It was my first farm job driving a D-4 Caterpillar tractor that pulled a grain cart that followed two combines that were harvesting barley on a large field (maybe 200 acres) next to the foothills.   When the combines were full of barley they would empty into the grain cart that would be emptied into a truck that transport the barley to metal bins for storage until taken to market later.  We worked 10 hours days and I was paid $1.50 per hour.   It was hot and dusty work, not to speak of the noise.   At the end of the day and when sleeping at night I could still hear the clanging of the tracks on the Caterpillar tractor.  

Today there is no dry land farming on these lands due to a drier climate.   Some of these crops are raised with irrigation throughout the Sacramento Valley.