Worst Midwest Drought in Years is Wilting Crops

[sintax]

Worst Midwest drought in years is wilting crops

By Scott Kilman
The Wall Street Journal
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/business/12307494.htm


"We're getting to the point where the plants don't have much flowers left. It's not good news." – Agronomist Bill Wiebold

The worst drought across the east-central United States since 1988 is shrinking potential harvests of corn and soybeans, and slowing commercial shipping on some rivers.

The dry spell, now in its fifth month, is blistering productive farmland and draining tributaries that feed the Mississippi and Illinois rivers. Those are crucial pathways for hauling commodities such as salt, petroleum products and cement-making materials to Midwest cities.

Several barge operators are reducing their loads to keep vessels from scraping the bottom. The move is threatening to slow the delivery of building materials to some construction projects in Chicago and could snarl the movement this fall of newly harvested crops.

If river levels don't rise soon, the U.S. grain industry "will have significant delays," said Royce Wilken, president of American River Transportation Co., the barge unit of Archer Daniels Midland Co.

[jaxx]

1. West central Illinois

and we are -13 inches of rainfall. Have gotten about 1/2 inch the last 2 days and hopefully more to come. Most of it has gone north or south of our area....up to 4 inches some 70 miles north. Crops are bad, corn nearly 40% drop and they are hoping this rain will save most of the soybeans. Wells having to be dug deeper by many rural towns and people.

I just hope the moisture finally comes as rain and not as snow this winter!!

[bemildred]

2. Good luck, you will need it. nt

[puerco-bellies]

21. Many people anticipated drought in the Mid-West Heavy Rains in So-Cal

It is an El Nino year. The classic pattern is heavy rains here in So-Cal (which we got "big-time"), and drought in the Mid-West which is the case. Corn has a big carry over supply so the lack of a price surge in the face of USDA crop summery showing up to 50% damaged is not surprising, but with almost no carry over supply the recent 60+ cent drop in soybean pricing is puzzling as well as painful to me. August is the crucial month for soybean yield so I'm watching this very closely.

[wli]

3. I wonder if this is connected to global warming.

[opihimoimoi]

4. If we ask RASH SORE ASS..he will deny it....as he always has...

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. I just drove halfway across the country

from NC to KS. The rivers are way down. The corn looks dead everywhere.

[alfredo]

6. We are in a severe drought here in the Bluegrass region

of Kentucky. We are -9 inches and no relief in sight. We need a good wet hurricane in the Gulf. Sorry south coasters, but we are drying out. The ground is cracking in lawns. Soil is pulling away from foundations.

I've even taken to drinking my bourbon straight.

[Dogmudgeon]

7. The branch water is gone from Kenucky?

That's a sign of the End Times, you know.

--p!
Make mine a Bourbon ... with extra Pestilence, Plague, and War.

[alfredo]

12. But as long as I have a good single barrel bourbon,

they can bring it on.


I am a big fan of Eagle Rare. It beats out Woodford Reserve hands down.

[CityZen-X]

13. If Tenasseee...

is a red state so be it!

[KittyWampus]

8. Drought Here On Eastern Long Island. Been Month & A Half Since Real Rain

unirrigated lawns are dead.

My garden is doing so-so with sprinklers.

And up til July it was freakishly COLD.

[HockeyMom]

14. Setting all kinds of Heat records too

I cannot remember the last summer it as near or above 90 and humid for over a month. My $500 one month A/C bill shows it.

They said it was supposed to be a "cool" summer. Yeah, right. Just hope the winter isn't the opposite extreme. Don't want to see what the heating bills will be.

[ForPeace]

9. While So. Cal. has the second wettest season on record

July 1, 2004 - June 30, 2005 rain year was the second-wettest season on record at downtown Los Angeles: 37.25 inches of rain. That's just .93 inch off the record set in 1883-84 and more than double the normal 15.14 inches.

[kestrel91316]

19. But remember most of that came in an 8 week period.

[ForPeace]

34. We always have a short rainy season

Here in LA it never rains in the summer, and having extra rainfall in the winter doesn't help us because it encourages the brush to grow causing the potential for a bad fire season in the fall. We don't get enough to rely on it for our water supply anyway.

[kestrel91316]

36. It is short indeed most of the time, lol. I myself prefer the Oct-Mar

rains we had this year. But beggars can't be choosers.

[mom cat]

25. Welcome to DU ForPeace,,,,be thankful fot the rain that you are getting,

:hi:

[ForPeace]

35. Thanks mom cat

Thanks for the welcome. As I later said above, the rain here doesn't help us, the mid-west would be welcome to it!

[knitter4democracy]

10. It's been a weird summer up here in Michigan.

We keep getting lots of rain here in Battle Creek, but over by my mom's house (normally kind of wet), the corn looks horrible. I haven't seen it that bad since the bad droughts of the eighties. The rain sure has been consistent in the areas it's picking rather than everywhere like normal.

[rugger]

11. Wonder if the great breadbasket of red America will realize global climate

change is here. The future may not be so rosy, but at least we will all have prayer in schools.

[Zorra]

15. And republicans have frivolously squandered our budget surplus, so

that all emergency funds to help farmers or those driven into hunger and homelessness through republican voodoo economics will have to be borrowed, or there will be a national catastrophe.

Good grief, Bu*h and the republicans have really laid waste to our United States. It's almost like we've been devastated by an enemy invasion.

And they won't even admit that there are environmental problems. They say environmental concerns are just a bunch of liberal illusions, and that it makes no difference if they continue to pollute our planet with unrestrained, wanton abandon. They are going to kill us all if we don't stop them somehow.

They trashed our environment, our budget, our economy, our political system, our society, our civil liberties.

Our current republican government will go down in history as the biggest collection of fuck-ups ever assembled. Far worse than even Herbert Hoover and his gang of idiots ever dreamed of before they caused the Great Depression.

[LeftyElvis]

16. I've been around awhile

and there's no question it's getting hotter. My aunt in Virginia Beach, Virginia planted a palm tree she got in Georgia just for grins and it made it through the winter.

[mtnester]

17. Ohio is in bad bad shape

100 degrees at our house today, been HOT since Memorial day, with only 3/4 inch of rain in the rain gage since June 1. Our air quality index is miserable, and everyone is looking limp and tired.

Corn is in bad (REAL bad) shape, and soybeans? They are not setting flower. Farmers in this area will suffer hard this season, tomatoes are small and WON'T turn red, it is horrid.

[kestrel91316]

20. Well cheer up, Marie Antoinette says they can make pickled green tomatoes

(to go with the cake, you see)

[mom cat]

26. Welcome to the future!

[Barkley]

28. OH. Well.

At least gays can't marry in Ohio.

[mtnester]

29. Yeah, as the PARENT of a gay child, I know all about the

horrid discrimination my son faces in his home state.

I fought on the front lines to have that nasty gem fail, but, just as the Repubs today are spinning 9/11 on all the talk shows was CLINTON'S fault, they were able to scare the bejeezus out of mid America that the faggots will come, take their children, and convert them, while our Dem representatives remained mostly silent. Call that a "drought of conscience" along with our lack of rain.

[norml]

18. 75 miles of Platte run dry

75 miles of Platte run dry
Experts keep close watch, but say it's no cause for worry

By Nelson Lampe, Associated Press
August 12, 2005

OMAHA - About 75 miles of water is missing.

From west of Grand Island, northeast to Columbus, the Platte River has all but dried up.

Not for the first time. Nor for the last, experts say.

"Until man came along, we didn't expect to have water in the summer" in the Platte, said Darrel Siekman on Tuesday. He's the University of Nebraska-Lincoln agriculture extension educator for Merrick County. "Now we have it in our heads that the Platte shouldn't run dry, which it always did."

"But the Platte River is a managed river now," said Al Dutcher, the state climatologist. "Before Lake McConaughy was built (in western Nebraska), we were looking at a natural system. Since it's been managed, we are releasing flows at a constant rate" for flood control and for downstream irrigation.

"Because the severity of the drought upstream in Wyoming and Colorado, your upstream reservoirs are dry," he said. They can't provide water to fill McConaughy.


snip


http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/state/article/0,1299,DRMN_21_3996706,00.html

[truthisfreedom]

22. and, the truckers are unable to pay for gas. it's a world of hurt, and

all of it leads to bush's 30's. then 20's. then teens in the polls.

[dad]

23. hot and rainy summer here

Seriously, I have barely had to water my garden at all.

[Dulcinea]

24. I wish we could send them some rain.

It won't stop raining here (Georgia.)

I'm sick of it!

[Mari333]

27. So bad here in sw michigan

that my neighbour , who owns a blueberry farm, had to run a large industrial hose across my land to buy water from the city fire hydrant. He stopped and told me the crop was crap this year. This will also mean higher prices on everything, add that to the higher prices because of gas.

[davsand]

30. With the drought farmers are taking it coming AND going.

With the increase in fuel prices and the drought reducing crop production, farmers are seriously hurting. It is costing more to harvest less, essentially.

Not only are you going to see your food products cost more due to transportation costs increasing, but you are also gonna see a scarcity of certain products due to the bad weather conditions.

The farmers themselves will not see any real market price increases in it all either. They are caught in the middle just like the consumers. The only ones who are making anything off of this entire mess are the guys in the middle--the traders and the agri-corporations. You can kiss the smaller family farmer good-bye after too much more of this.

Better say hello to a food supply controlled by corporate giants like Monsanto...



Laura

[SoCalDem]

31. Just because it "used to" rain where you farm,

does not mean it always will.. :( Look for even higher prices in the fall:(

[acmavm]

32. One fact that's inescapable, Nebraska is hurting for water. And there's

no money to be had to help them.

But they voted for bush** so I see it as one of those 'what goes around comes around' kind of things. Yes, we well all be hurt by this, but when the farmers start to whine about lack of federal help, lack of this, lack of that, I hope they remember that they didn't give a damn about anything else but their own hee haw backward bigoted political agenda when it was time to pick a leader for this country.

[doubleplusgood]

33. Bingo !

Sure, farmers are suffering from the global-warming induced drought & lack of federal aid, but praise Jesus that gays can't marry !