While temperature and related growing degree days help control how fast corn and other crops develop, it’s less well known that solar radiation also has an effect. If it’s warm but cloudy, the corn growth will be slower than if skies are sunny. This is one reason that we are…
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You’ve probably heard about the massive forest fires that are spreading through parts of California, and you might have even seen some of the images of smoke and flames associated with the fires. But while the fires are affecting the forests in the area, they are also causing problems for…
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Physics Today reported this week that due to the warming hole which is seen in the central US, corn yields there are higher than they would be if that area had warmed as much as the rest of the United States. The cooler temperatures improved corn’s performance there. One thing…
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Even though Georgia is not one of the top ten pumpkin producing states, we still have about 900 acres in pumpkin production each year. I was interested to read this article in Morning Ag Clips describing pumpkin production in the state. I learned that most pumpkins are grown in the…
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Many farmers in the region have been negatively affected by the dry conditions that were growing across the Southeast until the recent rainfall. In spite of that, they were hard at work trying to harvest crops. In some cases, the dry weather even helped them accomplish their harvest more quickly….
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Yale Environment 360 has a really interesting article which describes some of the ways that climate zones are shifting on earth. This has profound implications for agriculture as well as ecosystems because the climate zones (defined by a combination of temperature and precipitation characteristics) determine the kinds of crops you…
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One year ago this past week, Hurricane Michael came ashore in the Panhandle of Florida and devastated local agriculture in Florida, Alabama and Georgia. As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution points out, many farmers in this region are still waiting for aid a year later. You can read more here. Southeast Farm…
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