Latest / The Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Podcast / Episode 17 | Weather Extremes: Building a More Resilient System with Conservation
Transcript
- Episode 17 | Weather Extremes: Building a More Resilient System with Conservation 00:00:06:15 - 00:00:40:25 Todd Gleason This is the Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Podcast. Episode 17 Weather Extremes Building a more resilient system with conservation. I'm Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason. We're now joined by Eric Snodgrass. He's the principal atmospheric scientist for Nutrien AG Solutions. I asked Eric about the historically late planting season for 2019 and the rainfall that has been coming in larger and larger amounts over the past several years, and whether this pattern is here to stay. 00:00:40:28 - 00:00:55:03 Eric Snodgrass Well, you know, here to stay in terms of, you know, the rest of the summer or for fall, you know, that that's that's the two things we want to split it up into. So normally during summer, the type of pattern that made us so wet last fall and in the spring, we can't really get that very well in the summer. 00:00:55:04 - 00:01:09:28 Eric Snodgrass That's mainly because the jet stream retreats north. So we have to watch out for in the summer is a pattern that sets up, sets us up, where we have what we call northwest flow. That's where we get a ridge out west and out wide open Gulf of Mexico. And the storms kind of feed off of that moisture. 00:01:09:28 - 00:01:26:28 Eric Snodgrass And then they, then the push from the northwest to the south. That's a pretty stormy and wet summer pattern for us across state of Illinois. We are seeing that develop over the coming weeks as we move into July. My problems with that pattern is, we've got so much moisture already in the soil, so we're going to have an excess of moisture. 00:01:26:28 - 00:01:41:28 Eric Snodgrass Plus, you know, being added to the Gulf of Mexico stuff. And then the the other problem is, is this is going to help us, you know, stay more cloudy, than otherwise, with these storms rolling through and late in the day and, and that's not what we want. We need. We need a bit more sunshine, especially for these beans. 00:01:41:28 - 00:01:58:01 Eric Snodgrass So we've talked about the pattern. No, we're not going to see the pattern we saw this spring, lasting all summer long. Just because it can't, it's just not a typical way in which that works. But, certainly, it looks as though this is going to be a summer where we're struggling with too much water and then not enough. 00:01:58:01 - 00:02:13:17 Eric Snodgrass So I think as we progress forward, through summer, that's what we're looking at. Now, if we get to fall, what I'm watching out for fall, there's several things that are kind of, got me thinking about what this upcoming fall pattern is going to look like. One is the very weak El Nino that's going on right now. 00:02:13:19 - 00:02:38:04 Eric Snodgrass Two we have to watch the tropics very carefully. There's two things to watch in the tropics. So two A and two B, I guess one is we've been watching the low levels of the atmosphere kind of set themself up. And what we call a standing wave coming off of Africa. And that may at some point really influence the position of the jet stream over the eastern half of the country, which would actually be something that keeps us on the cooler and wetter bias. 00:02:38:06 - 00:03:06:11 Eric Snodgrass And the second thing is we're gonna have to watch for how that pattern allows for, tropical systems to develop. So as you look out to fall, it's a very, very difficult picture to paint. But, you know, we we, you know, best that we've got out this far right now suggests that, the chances of this being a long lasting growing season that goes way into October and November, we have a better odds that we might see, some cooler weather early than we do, seeing warmer weather lasting later. 00:03:06:13 - 00:03:29:27 Eric Snodgrass But I will be 100% honest. My ability to predict that fall pattern I'm talking October November this far in advance. I have very little confidence and all meteorologist should. It's just it's too far out there to see. But, it's certainly something that we, we need to be on the lookout for in terms of having, continuation of a wetter summer, even though the pattern is different from what made us so wet in the spring. 00:03:29:29 - 00:03:37:29 Todd Gleason Longer term, meaning over the next decade. Should farmers expect the weather or the climate to change? 00:03:38:01 - 00:03:50:07 Eric Snodgrass Absolutely. And the way that we've been seeing the changes happening, especially right here in the Midwest. So let's just focus on the Midwest. We what we do is we can look at this in two different ways. We can look at it long range with global climate models. 00:03:50:07 - 00:04:08:27 Eric Snodgrass Or we can also compare that output to what we get from our historical averages. And what I mean by that is, are there any trends in the longer term data that when compared against the average, we can start to see a signal arrive? And essentially in our part of the world, in the Midwest and part of the United States, the 70 year trend is actually warmer. 00:04:09:05 - 00:04:36:22 Eric Snodgrass We've picked up, over three inches of of rain annually. That's about 10% more precipitation. And, and we also notice that the precipitation is coming in, big amounts over shorter time periods. So the longer term effect, right here locally is that we are getting wetter with time, and we are certainly getting, more of our rainfall from the, rainfall events. Over the next ten years, while we will still have years where we struggle with drought, because that's just the way weather works. 00:04:36:24 - 00:04:51:20 Eric Snodgrass The longer term trend is certainly one where we are wetter with time, and that's supported across multiple data sets. That's supported in the way that we've noticed the change in the flow of the atmosphere. And it has a lot to do with US geography and has a lot to do with the way that the Arctic is changing. 00:04:51:28 - 00:05:05:08 Eric Snodgrass So, I think that if I were a U.S. farmer and I was thinking about what my biggest risks would be, it's going to be future water management. And that, I think, is the thing that we should be focusing most on in terms of the longer term changes are coming. 00:05:05:11 - 00:05:09:23 Todd Gleason You mentioned that it'll be warmer. Do growing degree days change very much? 00:05:09:25 - 00:05:27:02 Eric Snodgrass They do. So essentially over the last, about 40 years, we've noticed that we've picked up right here in central Illinois, just specifically about 7 to 9 days on our growing season. So I'm talking about last, you know, Frost in April and first, Frost typically in October. So we've picked up about 7 or 9 days so far. 00:05:27:02 - 00:05:44:07 Eric Snodgrass The North and some locations in the United States have actually picked up almost a month of of a growing season simply because of these, these shifts we're getting, the good news is, is where we're picking up the heat is not necessarily in afternoon high temperatures while we are still, you know, we still see some very hot days. 00:05:44:09 - 00:06:07:12 Eric Snodgrass The bigger signal, the underlying climate signal, is actually with warmer overnight low temperatures. So we are, warming, but primarily in the overnight, time period. Those temperatures. So what that does is that does allow us to more rapidly pick up growing degree day units, throughout the season, which is shifting our pollination earlier. It's shifting our harvest earlier, with some of our crops. 00:06:07:12 - 00:06:28:02 Eric Snodgrass And that is, of course, as long as we can get them in the ground on time. So, you know, this year, right now, we would be experiencing perfect summer weather, if we would have been able to plant this crop between April 15th and May 5th. But, you know, the early season, heavy, heavy rainfall, of course, pushed us in some locations up to six weeks behind in terms of getting things planted. 00:06:28:04 - 00:06:57:25 Eric Snodgrass But that longer term shift, I believe, is one that is very, good for the central US farmers, good for the Midwestern farmer, and how long we continue to reap the benefits from that? Well, by some studies, maybe another 30 to 50 years until it starts to really change the practices we have in place about how and when we we plant our crops and when we harvest them to where it starts to become maybe a bigger issue with avoiding some more serious summer heat stress. In the near term, though, the shift is one that's very positive for our crops. 00:06:58:00 - 00:07:15:18 Todd Gleason When you when you think about what farmers ought to be doing, you mentioned that they probably should be managing for water. Does this mean in terms of cover crops and tillage, in tilling, in the kinds of things that they do on the land to improve it? 00:07:15:22 - 00:07:29:15 Eric Snodgrass Yeah. You know, while I'm not necessarily an expert in until tillage practices or the use of cover crops, and we have some great university research, of course, that supports that and helps the farmers, you know, make those small adjustments to become more profitable. 00:07:29:17 - 00:07:59:21 Eric Snodgrass I think what I would I would want the U.S. farmer to be very aware of is that the way that precipitation is being delivered is changing, so the better that we can manage it once it's in our soil, I think the more sustainable, more resilient will be to these bigger changes. So what I'm talking about there specifically is if we can better manage the way that water flows through our tile, maybe through these, saturated buffers or, through better, retiling or having a better water management plan. 00:07:59:24 - 00:08:22:09 Eric Snodgrass I think that will add resiliency. On the cover crops side of it and on the, on the tillage side of it, all that I can really say is we all know this. I'm not telling anybody anything new. But if we can better maintain our soil health, our soil till, we can handle the bigger water events like we had last fall in the spring, such that it is having a less of a detrimental effect and maybe even at times a positive effect into the future. 00:08:22:12 - 00:08:42:19 Eric Snodgrass So. But the bigger picture I think of all these questions is what? What do we do as we start to just adjust to the fact that we are seeing the delivery of water from the atmosphere change? And, it's one way of managing good, soil health and managing the way the water flows through our fields, I think gives us the best answers. 00:08:42:26 - 00:09:01:29 Eric Snodgrass So I would be if I were a US farmer right now, I would be looking very, very often and very heavily into what, the research institutions like University of Illinois are doing that can provide some sort of guidance moving forward. Because that I think is going to be the biggest challenge for and then when we finally moving forward is how do we manage the water? 00:09:02:06 - 00:09:23:02 Todd Gleason Eric Snodgrass is the senior atmospheric scientist at Nutrien AG Solutions. He mentioned university research. Duane Friend is now here. He's an extension educator from the University of Illinois. I followed up on the research with him, starting with where farmers are today as it relates to soil loss. 00:09:23:05 - 00:09:26:01 Duane Friend Well, there's some some good news and some bad news in there. 00:09:26:01 - 00:09:46:26 Duane Friend If you look at the overall trends for the last 50 years, we we are losing much less soil then we did back then. And if you think about it, they kind of make sense. I mean, we're not doing the moldboard plowing like we used to. We've had a lot of that highly erodible land taken out, especially since the, the advent of the conservation reserve program. 00:09:46:28 - 00:10:07:02 Duane Friend So over that 50 year period, we're not losing nearly the soil that we were back then. However, if you if you lease lessen that up a little bit, if you look for the last ten years, unfortunately that line has kind of started ramping up a little bit again. And I think there's a couple of reasons for that. 00:10:07:04 - 00:10:43:11 Duane Friend One of them is, in the last ten years, the amount of cost sharing for a conservation programs has gone down. So there aren't as many acres in the conservation reserve program as it were 10 or 15 years ago. So some of that highly erodible land has come back into production. And the other thing is, and this is something that will affect not only highly erodible land, but basically just about every field is we're seeing an increase in the amount of those two, three, 4 or 5 inch rainfall events. 00:10:43:13 - 00:11:04:19 Duane Friend And that's happening not only in Illinois but throughout the Midwest. And, I mean, I can remember as a kid getting a two inch rainfall when I was growing up was a big event. Today it's pretty commonplace. I mean, here, there just this last weekend, we had, two inch rainfall. So those things are becoming a lot more common. 00:11:04:19 - 00:11:33:13 Duane Friend So when you get those really extreme events, you're going to have more erosion. It's just cause and effect. So I think those those two reasons are why we're seeing that uptick in erosion rates again. Now, they're not nearly what they were 50 years ago. But instead of continuing that downward trend, we're still not or we're beginning to that, at the very least, level off and in some cases increase a little bit. 00:11:33:16 - 00:11:38:02 Todd Gleason Are there things farmers can do to manage those extreme weather events? 00:11:38:02 - 00:12:21:09 Duane Friend Well a couple things they can do. And we're seeing a lot of folks do less and less tillage. And that's, that's obviously going to slow down the erosion event. But the folks that are already doing that, and unfortunately this year is a prime example of this, no matter how much no till you do or minimum tillage or those kind of things, we're still seeing a lot of gully erosion taking place and, and those types of things, unfortunately sometimes we get go backwards a little bit because when somebody gets a gully in the field and you have that, especially in the springtime, 00:12:21:11 - 00:12:48:03 Duane Friend what are you going to have to do to take care of that? You're probably going to go in and probably do some tillage to smooth that out, which then means more erosion overall for that year. So, you know, just on the regular amount of, of erosion, just, without talking about the extreme erosion events, things like the no till or reduced tillage in general or the use of cover crops where we're seeing more and more folks get into to using cover crops. 00:12:48:03 - 00:13:32:03 Duane Friend If you've got that cover on there and you've got that good root system in place with the cover crop, that's naturally going to decrease, that potential erosion that's going to take place. And in some cases, that will protect that field from the more extreme erosion. In some cases, though, I think we're really going to have to look more closely once again, at some of those hard structures, things like water and sediment basins, waterways, drop structures on the edge of fields, areas where you see that gully start, sometimes those things are going to have to be considered because, what when you do take into account these extreme erosion events and you've got 00:13:32:03 - 00:13:43:19 Duane Friend that much runoff taking place, you're going to have to have some additional practices in there, more so than what was required, say, 10 or 15 years ago, to protect that field. 00:13:43:21 - 00:13:48:27 Todd Gleason How do these big rainfall events influence nutrient loss? 00:13:48:29 - 00:13:57:29 Duane Friend We've seen a lot more because of this increased precipitation in general. And by the way, the projections are for springtime, precipitation. 00:13:58:02 - 00:14:26:23 Duane Friend They're projecting probably another increase of 15% over the next few decades. So because of this increased precipitation, these increased, extreme events, we've seen a lot more tile going in, which is needed if you're going to try to, to plant those fields in the springtime. But when you've got that tile in there, that is a very direct conduit for any of that, especially the nitrate to get into that tile water and go out. 00:14:26:23 - 00:14:51:12 Duane Friend So the more tile you have in there, the more potential you have for runoff. Now, if you do put cover crops in, and as long as you've got that living root system in there, those cover crops are a lot of cover crops are going to do a really good job of taking that excess nitrate, nitrate that may be there, especially in the fall, and keeping it out of that tile water. 00:14:51:14 - 00:15:15:25 Duane Friend So that is one of the big benefits of, cover crops besides the erosion control. It is going to help take care of a lot of that nutrient loss that you may see going out on those tile lines. Now, there are some other practices that you can do. The edge of field practices, those types of things. But cover crops are really a pretty easy management solution to take care of some of those excess nutrients. 00:15:15:27 - 00:15:40:12 Duane Friend And again, we're seeing more and more people doing this. I know this year, for some folks that may not, have worked the best, but I honestly, I have, seen that field not too far from where the office is, that had a rye crop. And, it got along a little bit farther than probably what they would normally do, but they were able to, to terminate that rye crop and plant soybeans. 00:15:40:12 - 00:15:58:16 Duane Friend And honestly, the soybeans, are actually looking pretty good. So, it can be done. It may take a little bit of, practice, a little bit of management change in some cases. But, you know, if somebody wants to do it, it can be done and it can be successful. 00:15:58:18 - 00:16:06:25 Todd Gleason Duane Friend is an Illinois extension educator. One of the farmers that's been putting these kinds of practices into play is Chad Bell. 00:16:06:25 - 00:16:14:12 Todd Gleason He lives and farms near Viola in Mercer County, Illinois. And I asked him to tell me a little bit about his operation. 00:16:14:12 - 00:16:47:17 Chad Bell My operation is in Mercer County. We grow corn and soybeans on a little over 1100 acres. And primarily, no till, we're 100% no till soybeans and primarily no till corn. But here recently I've started, working with some strip tilled corn in conjunction with, cover crops that I've been using, since 2012 on, on most of our acres, if not 100%, depending on the year. 00:16:47:17 - 00:16:53:16 Todd Gleason Do you think your soil is more resistant to soil erosion? And this would be a good year to test that theory. 00:16:53:18 - 00:17:13:06 Chad Bell Well, yeah, this this year kind of makes us. Makes me look like a fool a little bit in the amount of erosion that we've had. But, yeah, I think in general cover crops, mainly cereal rye is what we've been using, has really helped with our soil erosion, stopping and slowing that down. 00:17:13:08 - 00:17:41:20 Chad Bell The only issue we've had here in the last couple of years is that, harvest has been later than usual, and so, I use a 15 inch wide planter to put in the cereal rye primarily after harvest. And so if we have a later harvest, that means I'm getting getting that cover crop planted later than I would like to, which also means slower growth in the fall or maybe a little to no growth. 00:17:41:22 - 00:17:57:09 Chad Bell Most of the growth happens in the spring and, but don't get a whole lot of growth before winter time. And, early season, early springtime, late winter erosion can still still wreak just as much havoc as if it was and didn't have a cover crop on the acre. 00:17:57:11 - 00:17:58:14 Todd Gleason How long have you been no till? 00:17:58:16 - 00:18:02:08 Chad Bell We've been no till for a long time. 00:18:02:10 - 00:18:24:07 Chad Bell More recently, probably since 2012 or 13. And we've been primarily strict no till. Prior to that's been a little more conservation tillage or, maybe run a soil finisher here and there, but no till beans for about as long as I can remember. 00:18:24:09 - 00:18:33:03 Todd Gleason Have you noticed the availability of water? And the difference from no tilled to conventional tillage at all? 00:18:33:06 - 00:19:12:18 Chad Bell Yeah. I don't really have much to compare it to physically on our farm just because we haven't done a whole lot of tillage here in recent years. But, previous to coming back to the farm full time, I was working in the FS retail arena with our local FS, Goldstar FS. And so I got to see a lot of different farming practices and, and just comparing, comparing those operations, I can definitely see that there's a difference in water holding capacity and just water usage in general between, between no till and conventional till. 00:19:12:21 - 00:19:18:04 Todd Gleason Do you have advice, for farmers looking to adopt conservation practices? 00:19:18:04 - 00:19:39:07 Chad Bell Mainly, start small and but don't be afraid to try something, especially if you're trying it on limited acres. You know, it could it could be a huge success, or it could be a huge failure. You don't. We'll never know unless you try. But, always be willing to try something different and step outside the the comfort zone. 00:19:39:07 - 00:19:46:22 Todd Gleason And in the process, learning how to use soil conservation for a more resilient farm like Chad Bell has. 00:19:46:22 - 00:20:00:10 Todd Gleason He is from Viola, Illinois in Mercer County. Thanks for joining us on this episode, number 17 of the Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy podcast from the University of Illinois. I am Extension's Todd Gleason.