On the Plains, cool weather lingers on Montana’s High Plains, where Thursday morning’s temperatures fell below 32°. Elsewhere, warm, mostly dry weather favors fieldwork and rapid crop growth. One-quarter of the Kansas corn crop had emerged by April 29, compared to the 5-year average of 8%.

Across the Corn Belt, widespread showers and thunderstorms are slowing a previously torrid planting pace, but providing beneficial moisture for emerging summer crops. Midwestern warmth is promoting rapid development of winter wheat and emerged corn. In Illinois, 80% of the winter wheat had headed by April 29, compared to the 5-year average of 6%.

In the South, a plume of tropical moisture is generating rain showers from western Florida into Tennessee. Warm, dry weather covers the remainder of the region. Across the lower Southeast, however, drought is adversely affecting some pastures, maturing winter grains, and recently planted summer crops.

In the West, cool weather continues to slow crop emergence and development in California and the Northwest. In addition, a return of showery weather is causing renewed fieldwork delays in the Northwest.

May 3, 2012  By Greg Soulje

http://brownfieldagnews.com/2012/05/03/accelerated-winter-wheat-development-in-the-midwest/

image from wikipedia.com

Yesterday news outlets across the country aired stories about the effect that wind farms may be having on temperature.

Climatedepot.com‘s Marc Morano said the following on “Your World with Neil Cavuto“:

Cavuto:

“A new study is dealing a blow to the wind turbines that taxpayers are backing. The study shows that wind farms are fueling higher temperatures on the ground. These things are poster children for addressing global warming; now they’re contributing to it?”

Murano:

• The study just published in the journal Nature Climate Change performed in Texas indicates a 1.3 degree F increase in temperatures on the ground around these wind mills.
• What they are finding is the more wind mills, the greater the warming.
• Those turbines are pulling down the warmer air above and mixing in all the cooler air.
• They are having a marked increase in warmth.
• People are calling the issue the “wind heat island effect.”
• Unfortunately, it’s a government policy to subsidize energy that does not work.
• Worldwide 0% (using whole numbers) of energy is coming from wind; less than half a percent if you round.
• In the UK in winter, they’re finding it takes more energy to heat the turbines (to keep them from freezing) than they produce.
• 100 times the subsidy goes to wind and solar power than oil and gas. Oil and gas produce massive amounts of energy; wind and solar don’t.
• One of the chief proponents of global warming, James Lovelock, has now recanted his alarmism. He’s the same man who is now saying that Europe’s reliance on wind power will be one of the greatest follies of the 21st century.
• Even the big green gurus are reconsidering wind and reconsidering the reason we have these wind mandates–fear of man-made global warming.

Watch the interview: http://video.foxnews.com/v/1614120671001/study-wind-farm-turbines-causing-local-temps-to-rise/?playlist_id=87937

More on the recent study from USA Today:

The study, published online this week in the journal Nature Climate Change, used satellite data to analyze land surface temperatures near a few large wind farms in Texas from 2003 through 2011. It found a night-time warming effect over the farms of up to 0.72 degrees Celsius per decade. It says the turbines act like fans to pull down warmer air from the atmosphere closer to the ground.

Read more: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/greenhouse/post/2012/05/study-of-a-wind-farms-impact-on-climate-causes-stir/1#.T6AT7qu0x2A

More on James Lovelock from the Toronto Sun:

James Lovelock, one of the world’s most revered environmentalists and scientists, has admitted to being an “alarmist” about climate change.

Lovelock–whose books predicted billions of people would be dead by the end of this century because of global warming and the last “breeding pairs” of people would have to live at the polar regions–now admits he went too far. The 92-year-old now says his warnings were too alarmist, and that he and many others, including former U.S. vice-president Al Gore, were “extrapolating too far” from computer models.

“The climate is doing its usual tricks. There’s nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now,” he told MSNBC. ”The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time … it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising — carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that.”

Read more: http://www.torontosun.com/2012/04/30/global-warming-guru-says-not-so-fast

Farmlandnetwork.com posted these farm facts:

Farm Trivia

• U.S. farmers produce 46% of the world’s soybeans, 41% of the world’s corn, 20.5% of the world’s cotton 13% of the world’s wheat.

• Minnesota leads the nation in producing sugarbeets, turkeys, oats and sweet corn and green peas for processing. The state is second only to California in wild rice production. The state is also a major producer of spring wheat, canola, hogs, dry beans and milk cows.

• China has 20% of worlds population, only 9% of worlds arable land. Last yr US exported $14.7 billion of crops to China.

• Founded in 1928, the Future Farmers of America brought together students, teachers and agribusiness to solidify support for agricultural education. In Kansas City’s Baltimore Hotel, 33 young farmboys charted a course for the future.

• California produced 72 percent of the fresh asparagus. Michigan and Washington produced the remaining 28 percent of U.S. fresh asparagus as well as all of U.S. asparagus for processing.

• Arkansas farmers produce around 1.2 billion broiler chickens annually. Two-thirds of the corn grown in Arkansas is fed ot the poultry industry.

• There were 91.9 billion eggs produces in the United States in 2012. Iowa was the leading state at 14.5 billions. Other leading states inclued CA, IN, OH, and PA.
• Corn has surpassed cotton in acreage in Arkansas for the first time in 40 years. Still the nations leader in rice production.

• During the the last 25-year span, every state lost prime farmland. States with the biggest losses included Texas (1.5 million), Ohio (796,000), North Carolina (766,000), California (616,000) and Georgia (566,000).
• Texas produces about 25% of the entire U.S. crop and plants over 5 million acres annually. That’s over 8,000 square miles of cotton fields

• Roundup herbicide was commercialized in the U.S. by Monsanto in 1976. Roundup is the brand name of a systemic, broad-spectrum herbicde and contains the active ingredient glyphosate. Glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the US. Roundup has been the number one selling herbicide worldwide since at least 1980.
• Read more …

Article from nationalhogfarmer.com:

image from catholicvote.org

“The Labor Department’s notification today that it is withdrawing proposed rules that would have prevented many young people from working in agriculture is the right decision for our nation’s family-based agriculture system, says Bob Stallman, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation.

“Farm Bureau appreciates the administration’s decision and efforts by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to listen to farmers, ranchers and other rural Americans. We also know that this would not have happened without the efforts of Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS), Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT) and others in Congress, and we thank them for standing up for agriculture and the rural way of life.

“This victory for farm families is due to the thousands of farmers and ranchers who sent comments to the Labor Department opposing the rules and continued to voice their concerns with members of Congress. This announcement shows the strength of American agriculture and grassroots action,” he adds.

Stallmann declares: “Farm Bureau will continue working to ensure that the parental exemptions that remain important to agriculture will be protected, and we will continue our work to help educate families about the importance of farm safety. We also look forward to working with the Departments of Agriculture and Labor and rural stakeholders to develop a program to promote safer agricultural working practices.”

The Department of Labor (DOL) says it is withdrawing the proposed rule dealing with children under the age of 16 who work in agricultural vocations.

“The decision to withdraw this rule – including provisions to define the ‘parental exemption’ – was made in response to thousands of comments expressing concerns about the effect of the proposed rule on small family-owned farms. To be clear, this regulation will not be pursued for the duration of the Obama administration, DOL officials say.

“Instead, the Department of Labor and Agriculture will work with rural stakeholders to develop an educational program to reduce accidents to young workers and promote safer agricultural working practices.”

To view the article in its original format, visit http://nationalhogfarmer.com/resources/labor-department-nixes-child-labor-rules?NL=NHF-04&Issue=NHF-04_20120427_NHF-04_91&YM_RID=palmer@myrainreport.com&YM_MID=1308397