Turning Prairie into Promised Land

the first European farmers in Kansas must have thought they'd reached the promised land seemingly endless acres of flat fertile prairie just waiting to be tilled even before statehood they were already here carving their fields out of the grassland sowing the crops that would make Kansas a vital part of America's breadbasket for generations the heirs of those first farmers have built their homes among the fields while transforming the once wild Prairie into a utilitarian landscape of unexpected beauty this may seem like some oversized artist's master essay on circles and squares and this eye catching pattern is really the byproduct of pivot point irrigation systems the round shapes mark the reach of the rotating sprinklers just one of the innovative techniques today's Kansans use to get the most out of the more than 46 million acres of cropland in the state on over 65,000 farms like tracking satellite images to keep an eye on for rain or relying on the latest scientific weather data to decide which crops to plant and when getting it right Aran's Kansas farmers nearly 14 billion dollars in cash receipts in a good year and makes the state the nation's first in the production of sorghum second in wheat and seventh in corn 860 million bushels of just these three crops flow out of the state's farms each year and pour into silos like the ones here just outside Wichita at the debruce grain elevator more than half a mile from end to end it's the largest in the world behind its quiet walls nearly two and a half miles of conveyor belts move millions of bushels of grain in and out of 310 separate silos where the grain is held high and dry protected from mildew insects rodents or rot until it's shipped off to buyers but unexpected danger hides within the dust from the grain can be as volatile as gunpowder on June 8th 1998 an overheated bearing on one of the belts sparked an explosion that killed seven men ripped the silos open and took debruce out of service within a month a statewide shortage of silo space forced Kansas into a state of emergency scores of farmers were forced to dump their grain on the ground where their harvest was left to spoil but today the massive elevator is back in business it's 12 story silos once again reach for the sky towering over the horizon as giant tributes to modern American agribusiness

Channel: Smithsonian Channel

Views: 40,429

Rating: 4.8599224 out of 5

Keywords: landmarks, farming, agriculture, america, space, Travel, Aviation, air, smithsonian, channel, documentary, stream tv, free tv, free tv streaming, facts, episodes, tv online, watch, video, free videos, museum, new episode, tv show, watch video, watch online

Id: 2MX7v5YVGhw

Length: 3min 19sec (199 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 14 2014