Climate and Ag in the news
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Vegetable and Specialty Crop News posted a story this week on delays in planting watermelons due to wet soils in south Georgia. Some areas are almost three weeks behind due to the excessive rainfall in February and early March. If the producers have to wait too long to plant, the melons may not be ready…
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Farmers are taking advantage of drier and warmer soils in southern Georgia to get their corn crops planted, in spite of issues with the COVID-19 virus. Now that soils are well above the 55 degree temperature, germination of corn plants can occur quickly and young plants can emerge in seven to 12 days. You can…
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Following the devastating tornado disaster in Nashville earlier in March, Popular Science posted this article on changes in the severe weather season in the Southeast. While the total number of tornadoes appears to be fairly constant over time, the number of outbreaks with several tornadoes on a single day has increased. These tend to the…
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While many of us in the Southeast are struggling with too much water, farmers in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico are dealing with one of the worst droughts in recent years. They are in their third year of drought, and it’s the worst one they have experienced going back to 1986. Groundwater levels are already…
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For the past three decades, Alabama, Florida and Georgia have been battling over control of water resources in what has become known as the “tri-state water wars.” I have written about this topic in past blog posts. In recent years, Georgia has been working hard to improve its tracking of water usage, since in past…
Posted in: Climate and Ag in the news -
Science News had an interesting article this week. It was about a new study which showed that the biggest amount of tree damage in Hurricane Maria back in 2017 was not where the strongest winds were but where the rains were heaviest. Hurricane Irma, which passed near PR two weeks before Maria hit, brought heavy…
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The warm and wet weather we’ve had over the winter has had some impacts on blueberries across the region, according to this recent article by Clint Thompson in Vegetable and Specialty Crop News. The excessive rain may lead to increases in disease pressure as the rain helps move root-rot spores around the fields. The rain…