Western Kansas wheat crops are failing just when the world needs them most | Hacker News Reader

Western Kansas wheat crops are failing just when the world needs them most

hppr.org

25 pointsmakerofspoons13 comments

Your problem there is that your soil is dead. You're going to need to grow grass and clover there for a couple of years, and get some cows on it.

Without livestock farming, this is what happens.

Agrivoltaics could save both the wheat and the farms.

The wheat, because partial sun reduces evaporation and heat stress; and the farm, because they provide a revenue stream year-round.

A good configuration for wheat is bifacial panels erected as simple fence-rows running N-S, catching morning and afternoon sun, widely enough separated for equipment to fit between.

It is said that wheat, like many grains and unlike most vegetables, yields a bit less with less sun. While strictly true under ideal circumstances, circumstances are rarely ideal. When they are, you can afford a dip. When not, you likely don't get one.

Y'all realize its a desert out there, don't you? I used to live out there. Not Lane County, but its neighbor, Scott County. Google "Great American Desert". Its dry. Its hot. The wind blows to the point that 30 MPH is considered a "breeze". Nothing grows without irrigation. The Ogallala Aquifer is being emptied, just like Lake Mead and every other source of water.

The article says: "Most of the wheat stands in western Kansas are dryland, meaning they’re not irrigated"

This is a misleading take. Modern wheat strains grow with a crazy small amount of water (hence there still being _some_ crop to harvest despite an almost total lack of precipitation). Additionally, the farmers in this region understand the ecological realities that they are dealing with and many (included the one interviewed for this article) help maintain moisture content in the soil by not growing a crop every year. I have friends who own a farm in Eastern CO (so ~150mi east of KS) and they only plant a crop every other year.

It is dry and sandy country, but far from lifeless... (and far from what people normally think of as "desert" (e.g. the Sahara, or parts of the SW United States).

Artfully arranged photos. Look at the rest of the field, in the background: they got a crop out of most of that.

"estimates that more than one of every ten wheat fields in Kansas will be abandoned," ... that could be one producer letting fields go fallow? wouldn't they put in plowdown soybean as a green manure once the wheat was declared "failed"? Or is there some insurance term that would prevent that?

are you saying that this news is disinformation?

No moreso than any other press release. "Slanted" might be a better term.

Based on your interpretation of some pictures? Or do you have actual data or facts to back up what you’re claiming?

What specifically are they claiming and what data or facts would you wish to receive to back up that claim? To me it just looks like they're stating their opinion.

Drought will eventually make farming in the West untenable, lowering overall food production.

https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

Just because you produce a crop doesn't mean it's economical to harvest it. Farmers must produce sufficient yield to cover the cost of harvesting (fuel, manpower, equipment cost, etc) or they will just leave the failed crop to decompose.

The farmer may look disapointed in the photos, but with gov't FCIP crop insurance, he gets paid whether his crop grows or not.

So this is a negative event for the federal budget and taxpayers, but wheat farmers, get paid 85-90% of what the crop would have been worth at market, in the event of crop failures like this. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46686

I believe this kind of risk mitigation is available to AgriCorps as well as individual farmers for all the major crops like cotton, soy etc.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com