Flying across the US the other day, I spotted loads of striped fields, a little like those here;

To the east of Newmanstown

Some of the shapes and patterns seem to be purely decorative, as they can’t have been made to make it more efficient in my uneducated view!

Does anyone know why they’re like this? What’s the crop? Etc?

Thanks

Could just be the direction of the tractor that makes the different colours as the light reflects off it differently. Although having said that, the route is exactly the most efficient….

I normally see the huge circular crop fields in the states (I assume they are circular due to the irrigation systems)

Gradients?

Looks really dry , so the “brown” stripes are probably fallow to allow moisture to build up for the next year. The randomness isn,t The lines are mostly perpindiculer to access roads and to avoid patches of rock.
BTW brother in law used to farm in Alberta.

Turn off the aerial and turn on the contours and it’s a bit obvious. I could have guessed as it’s not too far from mrsmidlife’s dad’s farm near the delaware and we head into Penn for a days’s skiing or rafting in the Poconos fairly often.

Can often be forage crops such as alfalfa getting cut to go off to feed lots.

As pigface said most american livestock production is done with zero grazing. Stock are kept in huge feedlots in massive numbers, grass, alfalfa and other food is cut from fields and taken to the yards, the stripes produced by the direction the machinary is moving(as sambob says) like stripes in lawns.

Thats Lucerne for us europhiles