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Rome Ethredge of Seminole County posted some pictures of the wheat harvest that is beginning in southwest Georgia this morning on his blog (link). He pointed out that some of the crop has been affected by fusarium head blight, which reduces yields. Dewey Lee, the UGA Extension agronomist, says that he has seen fields with…
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While the last couple of weeks have been very dry, they have followed a wet April. For the year to date, most of the Southeast is fairly close to normal in both temperature and precipitation. By comparison the West Coast has been much hotter and drier than normal and the Northeast has been cold and…
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Slate.com posted an article this week on the dire state of water in Arizona as Lake Mead set a new record low level. Because of the way water is allocated in the West, Arizona farmers are arguably worse off than California farmers in terms of how their water may have to be cut this…
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It’s been a very dry May across the Southeast so far. I was driving back to Athens from Quincy FL today and noted the large plumes of dust behind the tractors out planting in the fields in southwest Georgia. The radar-based precipitation map from the National Weather Service shows that many areas have received no…
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You’ve probably heard about the “urban heat island”, which is a pocket of warm temperatures created by pavement and buildings in the center of cities. It’s not surprising that Atlanta and other large cities have well-documented “heat islands” that make the cities warmer than surrounding areas. A bit more surprising is that even moderate sized…
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Compared to the wet April we just finished, May has started very dry this year. How does it rank compared to other years? You can use the SERCC’s Perspectives tool to help answer that question (even if you don’t live in the Southeast). The map below shows the regional map perspective on the ranking for…
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California’s four years of drought is now having another agricultural impact on farmers besides the shortages of water for irrigation in some areas. Livestock producers are starting to find their springs and wells drying up, sometimes for the first time since their families purchased the properties back around 1900. This makes it more difficult to…