Crops
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The Climate Corporation published an article last week describing the impacts of an El Niño on yields of corn and soybeans in the Midwest. Their analysis showed that El Niño has little impact on yields in that region. But how about the Southeast? While we have much smaller acreage planted in those crops, the yields…
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Weather Underground posted a story today about how one winery owner in Virginia uses a personal weather station to help manage his vineyards. It shows the benefits of having hyper-local weather data so you know exactly what is happening in your own fields. You can read the story here. Weather Underground collects weather data from many…
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The Packer noted in an article this week that the Florida avocado season is off to a slow start this year and is running about three weeks behind normal. While they didn’t name a specific climate component to the late start, they did note that low quantities of rain actually made the quality of the…
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While we have been dry here in the Southeast, the region to our west has been inundated by heavy rains, leading to problems getting into the fields to plant soybeans and cotton. The rainfall map below shows the 30-day departure from normal precipitation, including the soggy mess over east Texas and parts of Louisiana. You…
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I ran across some great resources on climate and agriculture from Iowa State’s Extension program. While some of them are specific to the Midwest and to corn production, most of them could be used in the Southeast as well. Check them out at https://store.extension.iastate.edu/Topic/Crops/Climate-and-Agriculture. Note that although it says “store” all of the items seem to…
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AgWeb posted an article this week from Ben Potter on how standing water in the fields can affect young corn plants. While parts of the Southeast are in drought, many areas of southern Georgia and Alabama have experienced a lot of rain and some fields are quite wet. Corn is especially susceptible to problems if flooding…
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Rainfall varied widely across the state in April. Heavy rain fell in the southern half of the state while the northern portion was mainly quite dry, leading to the development of moderate drought in the northeast counties. Temperatures almost everywhere were above normal for the month. Tornadoes were observed on April 1 and 6.…