New York Times Documents EPIC Kansas Climate Change Wheat Drought

Actually . . . There is more of a hint than a hard full-court press given recent rains . . . In fact, we talked about this back in May when the situation started.

Nevertheless, Here's a full page feature story sent our way by smarter TKC readers . . .

The main culprit is the extreme drought that, as recently as late April, had ensnared almost the entire western half of the state, and forced many farmers to abandon their crops. More recently, intense rain has eased the drought, but it came too late for much of Kansas’ winter wheat, which was planted in the fall for harvest in late spring and early summer.

The dueling weather extremes have confounded farmers and raised long-term climate questions about the future of the Great Plains wheat crop . . .

A study Dr. Lin co-wrote last year in the journal Nature Communications  linked yield loss in Great Plains winter wheat since the 1980s to periods of intense heat, stiff winds and little moisture, hallmarks of climate change.
Dr. Lin said the early part of the 2022-23 wheat-growing season was the driest on the Plains in 128 years — even drier than during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s — though he cautioned that it was too soon to say precisely what role climate change played in this year’s particular conditions.

Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . .

First Scorched, Then Soaked: Weather Whiplash Confounds Farmers

As the war in Ukraine disrupts the global grain market, a volatile climate leaves Kansas on track to harvest its smallest wheat crop in decades.