Environment & Energy
Related: About this forum20-50% Of Corn Crops In 9 States Rated Poor Or Very Poor; Stockpiles Down 48% March-June
Triple-digit days. Weeks with little to no rain. Soil crumbling away. Stunted corn stalks. Right now the fertile fields of the U.S. Midwest are experiencing corn-killing weather, with parts of five corn-growing states in the region experiencing severe or extreme drought. In at least nine states, one-fifth to one-half of cornfields are currently in poor or very poor conditions. And all of this comes after earlier expectations that corn farmers were going to produce a bumper crop this season, with 40 million hectares planted the largest corn area in 75 years. Instead, we could see that crops wilt, as Darrel L. Good a professor emeritus of agricultural and consumer economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign told the New York Times:
What we know is this: theres been some permanent and substantive yield reduction already, and were on the cusp, depending on the weather, of taking that down quite a bit more.
So terrible is the weather in the heartland that farmers have begun to compare it to the drought of 1988, which wiped out millions of hectares of corn and caused $78 billion in crop damage, or even worse, the great Dust Bowl era of the 1930s. Already, stockpiles of corn have fallen by 48% from March to June, the biggest drop since 1996 and that was before the drought and the brutally hot weather began in earnest. The percentage of the corn crop with top-quality ratings was 48% as of July 1, compared with 69% a year ago.
Whether 2012 goes down as just an off year for corn crops or a truly historic disaster will depend on the next couple of weeks. The pollination phase is imminent for corn plants in much of the country. Thats the period when ears of kernel-filled corn should be appearing on the plants. But drought and extreme heat can wither and stress corn plants, stunting their growth or even preventing pollination altogether.
EDIT
http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2012/07/05/rising-temperatures-and-drought-create-fears-of-a-new-dust-bowl/?iid=ec-article-latest
FirstLight
(13,352 posts)serious shit, maynard... especially when you think of the fact that corn is the base crop for so many foods... it's in everything, and used as a feed for livestock...
so, the depression of the 30's is upon us again in so many ways...except this time, it's much worse because the climate is not going to go back to normal anytime soon
Our food supply is limited mostly to corporate channels now and is far less diverse than back in the thirties.
flamingdem
(39,304 posts)russspeakeasy
(6,539 posts)Sirveri
(4,517 posts)Need to pay more attention. Then I could have held it off market and spiked the price even more! Made a KILLING! OH YEAH PROFIT!
GeorgeGist
(25,294 posts)or just forgot the thingy?
Sirveri
(4,517 posts)Bad mood today too.
NickB79
(19,114 posts)It's 5-6 ft tall and looks AMAZING. The old saying "knee-high by the 4th of July" would look ridiculous compared to these fields. Between the crazy-warm spring that allowed very early planting, the heavy rains at just the right time in early June, and the fact that central Minnesota only saw a few days of 95F or higher heat this summer, this is shaping up to be one of the best years ever for corn.
My dad just laments how the new owner is going to make a million dollars off that land this fall, while he struggled most of his life to make ends meet through the farm crises of the 80's and 90's.