Think of on I-20 between Abilene and Sweetwater Texas.
This area may not be the Great American Desert, but it also is not the Piedmont of Virginia ether.

HERE in Central Texas where average rains are about double the average rainfall for Merkel fallow can be a good option also.
Fallow is to accumulate deep moisture for a better crop. The idea is to have one Zero crop followed by one good crop and the average is better then two poor yielding crops.
HERE growing alfalfa I like to accumulate some deep moisture but I also like to have a full summer to discourage the weed potential, apply fertilizer at my pleasure, and improve surface drainage.
Bare ground looses less moisture to evaporation than we loose through evaporation AND transpiration.
HERE we loose even less moisture with a good wheat stubble to shade the ground, but we loose even less moisture if the ground is lightly plowed to break the capillary movement of the moisture to the surface.

Merkel is a land where traditional crops do better using fallow, or skip row planting.

I would think that a chemical fallow would be preferred as the soil out there can move with the wind, while the heavy clay soils HERE do not move excessively with the wind. Water erosion now is another story, here.

The weather in Texas is a continious drought, broken by periodic flooding.

There is a throritical deviding line between the Humid East and the ARID West. Usually thought of as 97° W,  but locally we consider I-35 to be the deviding line.