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By LARRY S. HOLMES
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Many motorists driving along Virginia’s highways, particularly in the rolling northern piedmont, are seeing fields planted in crops that seem to be growing in wide bands. It is a sight that is very pleasant to the eye. But the planting is not done for appearance. It is done for several reasons, most importantly to control erosion. This planting practice is called “stripcropping.”
Stripcropping is simply alternating a strip of grain, alfalfa, or some other close growing crop with a strip of some row crop such as corn. These strips are installed in varying widths to fit each particular field and each farmer’s needs.
Clay Penn, of Madison, installed strips in the 1950’s and is still farming them. “The reason we’ve stuck with the strips all these years is simple. Back when we worked the land with horses there were gullies you couldn’t drive over. Now the gullies are healed and without strips we couldn’t work this hilly land,” commented Penn.
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