Drought

Extreme Drought with Everyday Expectations

By: Greg Stevens

In addition to smaller amounts of rainfall, temperatures in the past couple years have been reaching record highs. These two factors along with others have caused serious issues for the Midwest in the past years. The most impactful: drought.

Drought has serious consequences to the major agricultural area because in a drought, crops are more likely to die. With so much sun and high temperatures and little water, drought is a hard thing to avoid.

As a result of a drought, farmers tend to water their crops more, in hopes of saving all their crops. However, this is isn’t truly the best way to combat the problem. Not only are farmers using much more water than normal, they also are over watering to the point where there irrigation systems cannot handle that much water. Enter the problem of runoff.

2012 was one of the worst years on record for farmers in the Midwest, and according to reports, the future does not look much brighter. Unfortunately drought is something that cannot be avoided and is a problem that those in the trade must face.. However, farmers should prepare themselves as best as possible and know the limits of their farms and irrigation system.

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Information courtesy of:

USA Today

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/02/14/drought-farmers-midwest/1920577/

The Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/29/us-drought-2012-midwest-winter_n_2214061.html

 


 

 

 

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