Multiple Cropping PDF Download

Extract: U.S. farmers increased double-cropped acreage from 5.8 to 12.4 million acres during 1974-82, from 1.9 percent of all acres harvested in 1974 to nearly 4 percent in 1982. Double cropping was expanding because of rising commodity prices and producers' adoption of advanced technologies in plant varieties and farming practices. Appalachia, the Delta States, and the Southeast showed the sharpest growth in double cropping, partly because growing seasons there are relatively long. Double cropping declined after 1982 because of weak soybean prices, Government-sponsored idling of some wheat acreage that would otherwise have been double cropped, and unfavorable weather in several important doub le-cropping areas.