My dad must have started doing a little double cropping somewhere around 1960. It started out we did it if all the other farm work was caught up (which included a lot of cultivating) we might moldboard plow a field or two of wheat stubble, work it down and plant it.

We would have been using a 494A JD planter (36" rows) if I recall correctly with runner openers. The runner openers were a PIA in that if the plowing job was not perfect some straw would catch on the runners and beans would be laying on the top of the ground.

We only did it if we had time and there was plenty of moisture. It was a catch crop, an opportunistic crop.

Any more if we don't get the double crop beans planted, it was not worth planting the wheat to begin with.

That does not give you any history much other than the practices we used at the time.

John