Many in the agricultural community may not be aware that USDA has an office which is charged with helping farmers prepare for climate change. Climate Change Program Office director Bill Hohenstein (pictured left) talked some of their work during the Bayer CropScience Ag Issues Forum last week in Phoenix. “We’re concerned about climate change,” he said during an interview with … Read More
Environmental Impacts on Yield and Trading
With a session topic titled, “Global corn/soybean cropping and trading – how do environmental constraints impact yield and trading,” you’d think this would take a long time. However, at the Bayer CropScience 2014 Corn and Soybean Future Forum Kyle Tapley, Senior Ag Meteorologist, MDA Information Systems, got the job done in a short time frame. The focus was on weather … Read More
New Online Tools Help Farmers Use Climate Data
Two new online decision-making tools are available to farmers through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Useful to Usable, or U2U, research project, according to state climatologist and South Dakota State University associate professor Dennis Todey. The project is funded through the Agriculture and Foods Research Initiative. Corn Growing Degree Days, or GDD, will show producers how their crops are developing … Read More
More Profits for Strawberry Growers
A University of Florida-developed web tool can bring growers $1.7 million more in net profits over 10 years than a calendar-based fungicide system because it guides growers to spray their crop at optimal times, a new UF study shows. The Strawberry Advisory System, devised by an Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences researcher, takes data such as temperature and leaf … Read More
Monitoring Weather Risks Using Predictive Models
Moorea Brega, Climate Corporation, spoke during the Sponsor Showcase at the recent International Conference for Precision Agriculture. She shared how the company quickly changed their focus of looking at weather risks for all industries and fine tuned their resources keeping the farmer at their focal point. “The way that we did that was by using predictive modeling. Once you build … Read More
White House Releases Climate Change Report
The administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency discussed the new White House climate change report out yesterday with members of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting meeting in Washington DC this week. “It’s a really good document in terms of focusing on the United States,” she said. “In particular, it looks at the agriculture sector. It talks about the droughts … Read More
National APLU Report Outlines Research Challenges
The national Association of Public and Land-grant Universities released a report outlining six “grand challenges” facing the United States over the next decade in the areas of sustainability water, climate change, agriculture, energy and education. The APLU project was co-chaired by W. Daniel Edge, head of the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at Oregon State University. The report is available … Read More