Climate and Ag in the news
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The Packer reported today that the Florida grapefruit season is expected to end earlier than usual this year due to problems caused by El Nino conditions in the state. USDA reported that the crop was the lowest in three decades, according to the report. Fall and early winter brought warmer than normal temperatures and the…
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You might not consider winter a time to get a heat wave, but one accepted definition of a heat wave is three or more consecutive days with temperatures at least five degrees above average. So media reports of a “heat wave” in Calgary are correct, even if the temperatures seem low to us in the Southeast. According…
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If you are old like me and have lived in the Southeast for most of your life, you may remember the snowstorm that occurred across much of the Southeast in February 1973. Some areas of Georgia and South Carolina received more than 18 inches in the storm, which occurred from February 9 to 11. The…
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As part of the celebration of the International Year of Soil, the New York Times published an article this week on the value of planting cover crops between regular harvests. Among the benefits: increase in soil carbon, decrease in erosion, reduction in compaction, lower fertilizer costs, and improvement in crop yields. And as I’ve pointed…
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Chris Robbins’ blog at iWeatherNet.com noted that today is the birthday of the National Weather Service. Here is how his entry begins: “The Weather Bureau, now known as the National Weather Service, was established on February 9, 1870 by the 41stUnited States Congress and signed by President Ulysses S. Grant. On March 29, 1870, the…
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I read an essay this weekend on a farmer and his wife in a tiny village in south India and how their lives and farming are affected by the rain there. It was a poetic description of how small farmers are intimately connected with the atmosphere and depend on it to provide the water they…
Posted in: Climate and Ag in the news -
Commercial fishing is a major source of income near the coasts across the United States. The Southeast has proportionally more coastline than any other area of the US except for Alaska, and the economy in coastal areas depends heavily on fishing. Trends that reduce the catch of seafood will have a large impact on the…