{"id":58249,"date":"2021-06-13T06:19:11","date_gmt":"2021-06-13T11:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=58249"},"modified":"2021-06-13T06:34:31","modified_gmt":"2021-06-13T11:34:31","slug":"one-shocking-chart-that-has-farmers-trembling-with-fear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=58249","title":{"rendered":"One Shocking Chart That Has Farmers Trembling With Fear\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
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One Shocking Chart That Has Farmers Trembling With Fear\u00a0<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n
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Readers know by now that the Western US is facing one of the most severe droughts in years. We’ve documented\u00a0(read\u00a0<\/em>here<\/em><\/a>\u00a0&\u00a0<\/em>here<\/em><\/a>)<\/em>\u00a0this spring of a “megadrought” sweeping across states like California and Nevada as risks of a second Dust Bowl increase by the day.<\/p>\n

But in this note, let’s dive deeper into the drought and how it’s\u00a0impacting farmers<\/a>\u00a0and the potential consequences it could have on crops. Meteorologists at\u00a0BAMWX<\/a>\u00a0have published data on surface soil moisture over 20 years. Surface soil moisture is the\u00a0water\u00a0that is in the upper 4 inches and available for various types of plants. They found that the 2021 moisture deficit for early June is the worst it has ever been in two decades.<\/p>\n

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BAMWX’s Vince Bryan says the moisture deficit in the soil is “a concern” as it may impact plant development. Soil moisture plays a crucial role in agricultural monitoring, drought and flood forecasting, forest fire prediction, and water supply management.<\/p>\n

Soil moisture observations can alert of impending drought, such as what’s been underway in the Western US this year.<\/p>\n

What this means is that soil moisture deficits can dry crops and make them more vulnerable to pests. Even short-term\u00a0drought\u00a0can cause damage to\u00a0crops, mainly during critical stages of\u00a0crop\u00a0development, such as after planting or during flowering.<\/p>\n

If the drought persists, crop yields could come underestimates this year and result in elevated agricultural prices.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One Shocking Chart That Has Farmers Trembling With Fear\u00a0 Readers know by now that the Western US is facing one of the most severe droughts in years. We’ve documented\u00a0(read\u00a0here\u00a0&\u00a0here)\u00a0this spring of a “megadrought” sweeping across states like California and Nevada as risks of a second Dust Bowl increase by the day. But in this note, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[11599,220,1912,4848,827,4318],"class_list":["post-58249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-crop-yields","tag-drought","tag-food-production","tag-megadrought","tag-united-states","tag-zerohedge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58249\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}