February 12 | Holly Spangler writing for Farm Progress
Here’s what the oldest continuous experimental crop research field in the Western Hemisphere, founded in 1876, means for Illinois agriculture in 2023.
The Morrow Plots at the University of Illinois have inspired folklore, demonstrations and even a college song or two, but the historic plots hold significant research that helped develop crop production in the Midwest across the late 19th and much of the 20th centuries.
Established in 1876, the Morrow Plots are the oldest continuous experimental crop field in America, and the second oldest in the world, behind Rothamsted research station in England. Three of the 10 original plots — developed to test crop rotation — remain and are a protected National Historic Landmark.
Andrew Margenot, soil science assistant professor, chairs the Morrow Plots Committee and offers more insight into how Illinois agriculture has benefited from research on the plots.
What were the first Morrow Plots researchers trying to learn? At the time, they were looking at corn on corn or corn rotated with oats and clover, which was commonly raised back then for livestock like horses. Within about three decades, they went from looking at how rotating crops could improve yields to studying how nutrient inputs could improve yields. People weren’t really fertilizing with concentrated inputs until the 1900s, and they weren’t available at scale until after World War II; before then, it was largely manure.
That had to really change things. Yes. In 1904, they kicked off the second of five phases of the Morrow Plots that looked beyond crop rotations. That was looking at fertilizer inputs. Phase 3 was introducing hybrids and commercial fertilizers; phase 4 introduced soybeans to replace oats in the corn-oat rotation.
But their effect has been the same? Right. Long story short, the Morrow Plots have preserved their mission of looking at long-term effects on soils since 1876 of how we grow crops and how it affects yields.