Frost: 0 Rain: 1
Jun 3, 2008 farming, general food
Sure we avoided the late frosts of last year, but this year we’re plagued by something new: rain. We’re witnessing it right now with the strawberry picking delays, and according to this Missourian article, it means bad things for the corn crop ahead as it could “threaten the quality of the crop and decrease the potential yield for Missouri farmers.”
The rest of the article is written more in the tone that it will effect yield at the very least as “some counties across south Missouri received 35 to 40 inches of rain so far this year, which is 15 to 20 inches above normal.” This causes a range of problems from the inability of heavy machinery to “move through the wet fields to plant the crop,” to poor growing conditions, to the rain-induced cool conditions leaving “corn vulnerable to potential diseases that thrive in wet weather.”
As this is happening throughout the corn-belt I suppose the real question isn’t so much what will happen to all that delicious corn on the cob that you thrive for each summer, but rather what will happen to the costs of food and fuel as corn prices undoubtedly continue to soar?
From the mountains of Panama and Ethiopia, to the urban-jungles of Portland and Chicago, journalist Michaele Weissman takes us behind the scenes for a look at the world of third-wave specialty coffee. How did we get to Starbucks, and where we go from here?
June 6th, 2008 at 6:44 am
I drove the 225 miles back and forth to Indianapolis along I70 twice in four days this week and saw ONE field with anything growing. The rest were underwater, glistening with surface water (and so you knew, since the sun was shining, were plain muck below) and many just unplanted (and so you knew, were just too wet to plant). Seriously. Nothing planted. NOTHING.