Climate and Ag in the news
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The US Environmental Protection Agency has a new publication available which describes some methods local communities can take to prepare for and adapt to changes in climate. A list of chapters in the publication is below. Chapter 2: Overcoming Barriers to Climate Adaptation discusses potential social and legal barriers. Chapter 3: Overall Strategies discusses smart…
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Last week I reported that the Oroville Dam in northern California was in danger of losing its capacity to hold back water from the reservoir there, the second biggest one in California, due to a damaged spillway and water overtopping the emergency overland spillway due to heavy rains in the area. Hundreds of thousands of…
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WABE in Atlanta reported this week that the lack of chill hours this year is becoming a real concern to peach farmers in Georgia. Most varieties need close to 1000 chill hours to set a good fruit crop. Last year they had about 750 and the yields were down by 20 percent. This year most…
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Weather Underground posted a story today describing some of the non-precipitation things that have shown up on National Weather Service radars across the nation. I’ve shared some of them before but you might be interested in seeing the full list. You can see images and access the information at https://www.wunderground.com/news/radar-gaggle-geese-arkansas-iss?__prclt=FNouhSlu.
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With milder winters occurring in the last few years, there is a renewed interest in growing citrus in northern Florida and even up into Georgia. In the last few years I have worked with some farmers starting to grow satsumas in southwest Georgia. Once the trees are established, they can take temperatures down as low…
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The Southeast Farm Press reported this week that long-standing research in North Carolina shows corn and soybean yields in the Blacklands can be increased by 10 percent on average if control drainage systems are in place to manage water. These systems not only get excess rainfall off of the fields quickly but also have the…
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Yesterday NOAA released their global statistics for January 2017. They show that the January temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.58°F above the 20th century average of 53.6°F. This was the third highest for January in the 1880–2017 record, behind 2016 (highest) and 2007 (second highest). This is in agreement with the…