Climate and Ag in the news
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The Southeast is not the only place that has been running above normal in temperature. The Packer noted this week that strawberry production in California is running about three weeks ahead of normal due to warm weather earlier this season. They also noted that recent cooler temperatures are helping to keep the plants healthy. You…
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The National Phenology Network (NPN) provides information about the progress of physical events like budbreak, appearance of some insects and specific pests, and ice-off dates on lakes (in cold areas of the country). A recent article using their phenology map shows that this year we are running about 22 days ahead of average conditions for…
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The latest monthly and seasonal climate summary for the US was released by NOAA today. You can read about it at https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/national-climate-201802. During February, the average contiguous U.S. temperature was 35.4°F, 1.6°F above the 20th century average. This ranked among the warmest third of the 124-year period of record. The February precipitation total for the contiguous U.S. was 2.84 inches, 0.71 inch…
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Pacific Standard has published a new map based on a report from the EPA published quietly back in October which shows which counties in the US are most and least resilient to a changing climate, based on information from 117 different data sets. Unfortunately, the Southeast does not come off well, not necessarily due to…
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The National Weather Service office in Peachtree City GA announced today that due to the very warm temperatures in February leading to an early onset of the growing season, they are starting their spring frost/freeze warning program to help producers plan for frost protection. Here is what they said: Frost and/or Freeze-related Watches and Warnings…
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Chris McGehee, the state coordinator for CoCoRaHS in Georgia, noted today that we just passed the 10th birthday from the establishment of CoCoRaHS in Georgia. Here is her comment from Facebook: “The actual date snuck by me… I just realized that Georgia CoCoRaHS’ first stations were defined on Feb 20th, 2008, so we are officially…
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Here is a nice article from Farm Journal’s PORK newsletter which discusses the impacts of weather on grains for swine feed. It includes a discussion of the effects of weather on planting, pollination and crop yield as well as storage and other factors. You can read it here.