Farmers get a short harvest

Huntington Examiner ^ | 11/16/2009 | Mark Shoffner

[mshoffner]

The crispness is in the air and frost has already been on the pumpkin this fall. It's harvest time in Indiana. But for farmers, this has not been a good year. A shortened planting season because of rain is now mixed with a late harvest because of rain. Some reports have the moisture content as high as 35 percent in some areas. This has posed a problem for the wheat industry in Indiana.

[hoosier hick]

My neighbor just planted his wheat across the road. Earlier this year he tried to double crop his largest wheat field with a soybean crop that got about a foot tall before first freeze in late September. It has pods, but is still in the field, so I’m guessing they’ll just till it under....

hh

[autumnraine]

This is the modern day dustbowl in excessive rain. And unfortunately there is no picking up the slack from the normally prosperous San Jaoquin Valley due to the Save the Minnow campaign.

[ClearCase_guy]

Scientists like to measure CO2 levels, and then put that through a computer model, to arrive at temperature expectations, and then extrapolate that out, and relate it to sea levels, and then ascertain the impact of Global Warming on coastal environments based on these results -- which basically seem to flow from theories about CO2 levels.

On the other hand, you can look in the farmers' fields and say: "Wow. Mighty cold and wet this year, huh? We sure could use some more warm, sunny days, but they seem to be in short supply lately."

Scientists think they are a priori better at this, but I'm not at all sure.

[kanawa]

In SW Ontario, finally started the corn harvested last weekend...

[FromLori]

Wait until this affects the prices at the store it was bad all over this year my pumpkins were so small because our summer was first really dry, coldest summer for like a hundred years and then the rains came. My whole garden did poorly.

Related

Farmers scramble to finish harvest from hell

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE5AC3BS20091113

Has It Stopped Raining Yet?

http://www.cattlenetwork.com/Has-It-Stopped-Raining-Yet/2009-11-12/Article.aspx?oid=939747

http://www.martellcropprojections.com/usweatherforecast.html

http://www.qctimes.com/news/local/article_cc218564-d0d1-11de-bbf8-001cc4c002e0.html

Rain washing away farmers’ hopes for harvesting hay, corn

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=270298&ac=PHnws

Central New York counties named to ag disaster area

http://blog.syracuse.com/farms/2009/10/central_new_york_counties_name_1.html

[tiki]

For us that year was last year, we didn’t even have enough heat units to finish the cotton and we live in the high desert.

According to some historical government information that we got this year, in the early 1900s to the 40s our growing season was mid-March to mid-November. It is now mid-April to mid-October, almost a month difference.

[tiki]

In two weeks, when we’re finished with harvest, please send some of that rain our way. We have had less than 3 inches since August 2008 and there are parts of our county which have had none.

[Let's Roll]

I think that’s a 2 month difference.

But how can the growing season be even shorter in the midst of GW??

[DYngbld]

Wow we had ten inches last week. I would love to share some of it. We have had a very wet summer. Last year we had to water often this year only a couple of times.

[DuncanWaring]

Corn harvest finally started in SW Michigan about a week ago.

[tiki]

Duh, you’re right.

[SunkenCiv]

Yeah, and the weather kinda sucked all summer. A year or two ago (I forget which) one farmer I know planted almost a month earlier than usual, risking a little frost, because otherwise the rain (in the forecast, then in reality) would have delayed planting, and he got more than the usual increase in yield (from having the corn mature longer) in the fall. Not so this year.