A Little Ag Learning

Yesterday, I attended the Conservation Tillage and Technology Conference at Ada, Ohio.  I was going to go back today, except I ended up searching around for my calf.  The first speaker was Elwynn Taylor, professor of Ag Meteorology from Iowa State University (no, not The Iowa State University, they aren't that asinine in Iowa).  He first gave a little review of climate change and the potential threat from La Nina, then gave a little more in-depth presentation in a smaller session.  Amongst the items of interest, he showed a chart of precipitation for Iowa from I believe the 1880's until the 1960's, showing average precipitation of 31.5".  From the 1960's until the present, the average precipitation increased approximately 10%, to 34.5".  With this increase in rainfall, he estimated that what had been considered a 100-year rainfall has increased in likelihood to a 17 year return period.  That would seem to have some significant impact on my previous occupation of civil engineer. 

Also, he highlighted the wicked weather in Australia this year, which he attributed to the strongest La Nina in


50 years.  He put up pie charts showing anticipated effects on U.S. crop production for La Nina, neutral conditions and El Nino.  It pretty much broke down that if the condition is still in place in June, La Nina leads to below average crop yields 70% of the time, neutral conditions lead to below average crops 45% of the time, and El Nino leads to above average crops 70% of the time.  The data seemed to show some weakening of the La Nina, but new data would be released from NOAA on March 5.

Finally, he discussed surprises in USDA yield forecasts, and attributed the difference between estimated yield and final yield to USDA methodology.  His analysis showed 10% under forecast when growing degree days trailed averages through the growing season, and 10% over forecast when GDD's are above average in years like last year.  He felt a farmer could beat the market by closely monitoring NASS weekly weather and crop condition reports.  Overall, he gave a pretty interesting presentation.  You can follow his updates on twitter. 

The other presentations I attended focused on growing high-yield corn.  Today was Soybean School, but I missed it.