It is interesting that when following the weather, lots of people seem to thing that whatever is going on this year, that is the way things are going to be. We just came off of four wet springs in a row. We have been looking at ways to cope with that wetness. I cannot guess how many fields in our area have been pattern tiled the past 3 years. Last year we experienced our first hot dry summer in some time. Yields were reduced by the heat and dry. This year we are experiencing a record drought at least in terms of extent.
It really makes little difference to farming practice whether we are experiencing erratic weather patterns or climate change. As farmers and consultants we need to come up with way to cope with the volatility in weather patterns. We have found that tiling is a great way to cope with excessive water. What about dry summers? UDSA's ARS in their latest issue of Agriculture Research is looking to two technologies that might help cope with ot dry summers. One of them is no-till. The other is drought resistant seeds. Check page 6 and beyond in the magazine.
No-Till helps cope with drought by reducing soil surface temperatures and conserving moisture. In addition, no-till had some potential to sequester carbon dioxide which could help stabilize the climate. I know it is anecdotal at this point, but one of my twitter friends, @Shiremanfarms is over 500 acres into corn harvest and is experiencing and average corn yield of 180 bushels per acre so far. He is strip tilling and using cover crops to help him mange his soils. He is also one of the people who has done a lot of tiling in the recent past.
The point is, I don't think we can mange weather volatility to our best ability by always expecting to do things the way we have always done them. An Argentinian No-till leader is pretty much saying the same thing in this article.
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