Re: Measurement units used in USA

[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Phred) wrote in
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]: 

> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Ayrshire <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote: 
>>"fb" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]:
>>
>>> For the "translation" of an agricultural program from
>>> Dutch/English to American I am looking for units used by
>>> American farmers. 
>>> 
>>> - How do they measure length / width of a field (in yards or
>>> feet)? - How do they measure the area (size)? In acre with
>>> decimals? - How do they measure Yield?
>>> - How do they measure applied products (in fluid/dry ounces per
>>> acre)? 
>>> 
>>> Are there any other US units that are different from the metric
>>> (SI) units? 
>>> 
>>> Please reply to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>
>>Area of a farm or fields is expressed in acres such as my place:
>>9.4 acres with 7.4 tillable (arable) acres. Some areas aof the US,
>>the Midwest & Great Plains, we might talk about a section of land,
>>which is 640 acres, or multiple sections. Depending on the product
>>applied, the measurement may be gallons, pounds, tons, or ounces
>>per acre. Manure usually is gallon or tons per acre, fertilizer
>>will usually be pounds and herbicides or insecticides in ounces or
>>pounds per acre. 
> 
> But be aware that the Yankee gallon is smaller than the Pommie
> one. 
> 
> See <http://ts.nist.gov/ts/htdocs/230/235/appxc/appxc.htm>
> "General Tables of Units of Measurement"
> 
> In particular this section:
><quoting>
> The present British gallon and bushel--known as the "Imperial
> gallon" and "Imperial bushel" are, respectively, about 20 percent
> and 3 percent larger than the United States gallon and bushel. The
> Imperial gallon is defined as the volume of 10 avoirdupois pounds
> of water under specified conditions, and the Imperial bushel is
> defined as 8 Imperial gallons. Also, the subdivision of the
> Imperial gallon as presented in the table of British apothecaries
> fluid measure differs in two important respects from the
> corresponding United States subdivision, in that the Imperial
> gallon is divided into 160 fluid ounces (whereas the United States
> gallon is divided into 128 fluid ounces), and a "fluid scruple" is
> included. 
></quoting>
> 
> Note:  nist <http://nist.gov/> is the US National Institute of 
> Standards and Technology and has a lot of stuff that might be
> useful to frans.  I suggest using Google (Advanced Search) to
> search the site by using the restriction Domain/Only/nist.gov in
> the search criteria. 
> 
> 
> Cheers, Phred.
> 

Phred reminded me of yields. These are expressed as bushels per acre 
for grains, oilseeds and maize. Forages are expressed as tons of dry 
matter or tons of material per acre. For instance corn ,maize, silage 
is uually expressed as 25 tons per acres and then one would ask what 
the moisture % was to calculate dry matter yield. I believe cotton, 
tobacco & peanut yields are expressed as pounds per acre, but you 
should verify that.