the inflexibility of monocultures will be their undoing.

[mopinko]

read this by charlie pierce today, and it sorta scared the bejeebus out of me-
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a27611439/american-farmers-climate-change-effects/

watching the real farmers in my state and elsewhere, struggling to get anything into the fields in this mud, specialized and mechanized to the point of being paralyzed by bad weather, i wonder what can be done. what are the alternatives that could withstand completely unpredictable climate?

this spring has really sucked for my little farm. had a great crop of seedlings, busting w life. when i got them into my hoop house, and my little lean to greenhouse, the sun went out and the temps dropped, and everything is just shivering. i am dodging the raindrops, trying to get it done a little at a time.
find myself agonizing over my need for a real, year round greenhouse if this project is ever gonna meet it's potential. i mean, it is an insurance policy that i am pretty sure i would cash and more than once.

but dang, the big guys are getting creamed.
million dollar machines, mired in the muck.
or tossed by a tornado.
operations so specialized and mechanized that they are just stuck growing what they grow, or nothing at all.

so, what would i want?
i would be looking for shorter and shorter season varieties, so that i could still plant in june, even late june and have something, even if it isnt as good as my regular crop.
i'd want equipment advances that let me get cheaper, interchangeable tools to allow for more flexibility.
grants, loans, or even co-ops for tools and info.
how about saving some of those old fashioned machines, which care more adept?

but the dreamer in me also floats off to the perfect universe.
what if refugees from rice growing cultures could get into these soggy fields? could they pull off a crop? what would it take to facilitate that? the civilian reclamation and emergency planting corp?

i wonder how some of the permies are doing. seems to me that if i am ready to plant a green manure/soil enhancing fallow crop on a regular basis, i am ready to pounce on this, all this topsoil that the floods just gifted me, plant my daikon, my alfalfa, my clover, and wait it out for a year, w/o a complete backslide.

maybe some govt grants to plant more permanent crops, on at least parts of farms that lay in the path of repeated weather/water issues?


how would the blue do it?
what do we offer farmers? i think that any that still wondered about climate change are thinking again after inland icebergs.

[NRaleighLiberal]

1. we've barely begun to face, process and understand the impact of changing climate on farming and

gardening.

I've been considering doing some hard thinking about it and rolling it into some of my talks. I am experiencing it here on the opposite way that you are - we are baking and bone dry.

[mopinko]

5. we seem to be one or the other.

this is yr 7, and so far we have had at least 3 yrs where it was cold enough in the spring to cause damage.
the first year spring arrived a full month early.
couple summers were days and days of ~100°.

i feel like if i invested in a good, high quality grow space, i might be really patting myself on the back for that down the road.
it's tough, tho. my income is fixed at this point. generous, but fixed. i have some long term savings, and i know this will at least add value to the farm as a property.

if i thought i was gonna live to see the pay off, it would be a lot easier. but i am an old lady who is wondering how much longer i can be a farmer.

[wasupaloopa]

2. What do the 7,000 people laid off at Ford do? They are told to retrain but how?

Elections have consequences. Only if Dems are elected in 2020 is anything going to be done about trade.

Climate change is causing the bad weather I think. That cannot he fixed over night.

Vote for Dems. We are living in the hell conservatives created for us.

[safeinOhio]

3. Here in Central Michigan windmills are pooping up like crazy...

On average, rental payments for the placement of a single wind turbine lease can pay landowners up to $8,000 per year. Thus, wind farming can quickly become quite valuable, especially for larger locations that can host several hundred wind turbines.

I guess the cancer risks might be worth it.

[Farmer-Rick]

4. I have found varieties of vegetables that do well in monsoon like rains and desert like droughts

Last edited Thu May 30, 2019, 09:27 AM - Edit history (1)

The trick is to guess which it is you are going to get. My problem is the constantly changing weather patterns. To get around this constantly shifting weather, I plant both.

Last year with torrential rains, hail and cold, I had a crop of vegetables and fruit so large, I had to give a lot to the food bank. This year it looks like we are back to our rainy spring and drought like summer.

There are some things you can do to give your crops resistance to sudden weather changes:

Mulch, mulch everything, then mulch some more. Mulch your pathways to suppress weeds, keep run off to minimum and slow down wash off. Mulch your rows to suppress weed, keep moisture in the ground and protect seedlings from the force of rains, hail and cold.

Stake to prevent plants from being crushed by downpours. I have large row sized cages of formed up chicken wire I put over delicate seedlings or small plants.

Plant on slopes to ensure excess water is not left standing.

Plant seedlings and not seeds to prevent them from washing away. If you have to plant seeds, form small banks in front of them to keep them from washing away. These small banks also are great for droughts because they keep water there.

Delay plantings of heat loving plants as long as possible in rainy cold years. Plant as early as possible in dry years.

Cover seeds and seedlings when first planted to let them get rooted before exposure to excess cold, heat or rain. (Also be gradual in the removal of row covers as sudden temperature changes can cause overexposure damage even to plants in the ground.)

Most folks have probobly heard all of these but it is their continual application that keeps you harvesting in the worse weather. But it is a lot of manual labor and you rarely find equipment designed to do what you need. I have designed several pieces of equipment to do some of the things I can't purchase equipment for. I hire extra part time help when first planting.

I think the huge farmers with house sized tractor plantings each year are going to have to find a new way to farm.

[mopinko]

6. i do most of that, tho some for different reasons.

certain things need row covers to keep the god damned bunnies from devouring seedlings before they get a chance to form leaves.
beans pretty much require it, anyway w this cold.

i mulch like mad, because i am in the watershed of lake michigan, and this sandy soil can really move. i have hugelbeds, and use those slopes. lettuces and berries are my fave for that so far. also a good place for perennial herbs, esp parsley, w their long roots.
i add woodchips by the truckload, as i have 25 plus years of weed seed burden. already feeling the climate there, tho. there is a shortage of straw here this year. i couldnt get any from my regular purveyor.

i do seedlings as much as possible, since my plant sale is one of my annual things. and i just need a jump on the short season.
this year i need to do most of my squash family from seeds. got a good market cuke, but lost the rodent battle w my fave cuke, and my melons.

it makes me worry twice as much to see the climate science not only being denied, but now being actively destroyed.
how this country has let down the world, the planet, under this clown.

but i am curious about your self made tools. tell me more.
and do you think that there are old time tools out there that could help mid-size farmers these days?

what would help you cope?
urban ag is brimming w "internships", mostly unpaid. i rail about that to the point of getting nasty grams about it.
i do understand that we are still at a point where we are just growing our markets, and money is still scarce. but i do wish there were more formal programs where we could really move the sector forward. there are some, and they are growing, but it is still pretty wild west.
when the people get their govt back, a civilian conservation corp type program for small ag would be an awesome investment in surviving this crisis.
what could such a program do for you?

[Farmer-Rick]

7. Yeah, some classes on smaller farming techniques would have been great

I've developed a rake using wooden dowel rods cut and fitted to it to put in rows and the small burm on the low side to keep seeds and seedling from washing out. Instead of raking each row then going back and putting in the burm this saves time. I can attach it to the back of a small tractor, with a weight on top, and slowly pull it.

I have made a PVC pipe seeder that you can use to plant small areas standing up. It also can plant small seedlings and onion starts.

I've found a source for 12ft x 4in aluminum boards that are perfect for holding down biodegradable sheet mulches. I only have to buy them once and they are lightweight and easy to handle unlike sand bags and bricks. They stop weeds and scare the birds and bugs because they are shiny. I use to cut them to size but now have a source that does it for me. I have never had any of them fly off in the wind even with gusts up to 80 mpr. They stack up easily when not in use.

But since my wife of 37 years passed away in October, I have given up farming. Not sure if I will ever go back to it.