Crops
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While we’ve been dry here in the Southeast, other parts of the world are experiencing even worse heat waves and droughts. One of these places is India, where the heat has been rising to record-setting levels. This is resulting in a decline in the production of wheat, a staple crop there. You can read more…
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We grow a lot of pecans here in the Southeast, and farmers are always looking for new markets for pecan products. Modern Farmer posted a story this week about the potential for pecan milk, joining the ranks of other plant-based beverages like almond, soy, coconut, and other nut milks. The story discusses the benefits of…
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Here is another story about evaluating hail damage to crops, following the one I posted earlier this week. Nebraska Farmer posted this article about the evaluation of hail damage to corn. It encourages farmers to wait at least a week to see how much the crop can recover on its own before making a final…
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Hail can devastate a field in just a few minutes, flattening crops and causing bruising or loss of leaves. The initial sight of the hail-damaged field may lead producers to assume the crop is a complete loss. But according to this article from the Indiana Prairie Farmer, hail damage to soybeans (and most likely other…
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Even though the weather has not been perfect for planting in a lot of the Southeast, there is one place that has had almost perfect weather for cotton planting. The North Carolina Blacklands, with its rich, fertile farmland that hugs the Atlantic Coastline, usually has cool and wet weather in spring, but this year had…
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Over the last couple of weeks, wildfires have flared up again in Canada, some apparently even from fires that got tamped down over winter but reignited again in the warmer spring weather. Smoke from these fires is now starting to appear across northern parts of the United States and could move farther south in the…
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Did you know that the first people to identify the climate swing we now know of as ENSO or El Nino Southern Oscillation were potato farmers in Peru? They noticed that in some years very wet conditions occurred and caused problems with growing potatoes there due to the wet conditions, and other years were very…