Fertile Fields and Flooding

Fertile Fields and Flooding. . , River floodplains are the state's most fertile cropland, and idle land is rare. As you ride the trail, notice the fields of soybeans, corn, alfalfa, grain sorghum, and (in sandy soil) sunflowers and pumpkins. Floodplain farming was practiced long before Missouri statehood in 1821. American Indians in this region raised varieties of corn, beans, squash and sunflowers. Today, with applied technology, Missouri soybean and corn production generally ranks between fifth and tenth in the country. The U.S. soybean harvest represents almost half of the world's crop., Once used almost entirely for livestock feed and fertilizer, protein-rich soybeans are now also grown for human consumption in a variety of products. Soybeans are used in dozens of industrial products such as printing inks, lubricants, cleaning solvents, adhesive removers and herbicide additives., The only U.S. crop larger than soybean is corn. Corn is a prolific grower–often reaching 9 feet tall with a 4-foot-deep root system in just two months. Most field corn is used as livestock feed, but corn byproducts are also ingredients in ink, alcohol, shoe polish, ethanol fuel and paint. Since corn removes valuable nitrogen from the soil, fertilizer must be applied regularly, or legumes (such as soybeans and alfalfa) must be included in a crop rotation. In these fields, soybean and corn usually alternate from year to year., The tradeoff for fertile soil deposited by the river is the possibility of flooding. To lessen the frequency of floods, levees were constructed around large areas of fertile low-lying soil. During the Great Flood of 1993, the river breached levees on this stretch and water inundated the fields. River sand deposited on bottomland fields in other stretches ruined productivity, but damage here was minor. Still, farmers risk the chance of crop loss to periodic flooding in return for exceptional harvests., After the severe floods of the 1990s, some bottomland farmers weighed the risks, and sold their land to state and federal agencies. Creation of the Big Muddy National Wildlife Refuge and the Overton Bottoms Conservation Area (located upriver from here) are the results of these sales. Conservation agencies are working together to restore some of the river's meandering character with islands, side channels, backwater habitat areas and bottmoland forest. These efforts will not only restore productive natural communities, but will decrease the frequency of flooding in agricultural areas that remain.