# Soil health and climate change



## endrow (Dec 15, 2011)

https://www.agweb.com/mobile/article/soil-holds-the-secret-to-mitigating-climate-change/


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

With the record crop yields after the last several years, I don't know that crops have been affected by anything other than too much or too little moisture.

Regards, Mike


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## Hayman1 (Jul 6, 2013)

Vol said:


> With the record crop yields after the last several years, I don't know that crops have been affected by anything other than too much or too little moisture.
> 
> Regards, Mike


sorry Mike, have to disagree with you. Changing our moisture, temperature and humidity. All influenced by Gulf Stream flow. It's a bfd


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## KYhaymaker (Jun 7, 2018)

There is near 100% scientific consensus that there was an ice age around ten thousand years ago. Then it warmed up, way more than the glibal warming gurus are worried about now. Man didnt cause that 10,000 years ago, and likely arent causing it now. Correlation does not equal causation.

Nature has cycles, and random variation. While we have a responsibility to be good stewards, we aren't as important as we think.

What we can do is adapt to what is in front of us.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Back in the mid to late Sixties we had several years of "below normal temperature" summers and winters. The scientific community was peeing and squealing about the coming "new" ice age.....and our science teachers were talking about it in grade school.

This will pass.

Regards, Mike


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## farmersamm (Nov 2, 2017)

This is probably not gonna earn me a lotta friends I guess.

I sorta saw the writing on the wall about maybe 7yrs ago.

I live in Tornado Alley. A bit dangerous, but also a very reliable source of timely rain.

I started seeing wild swings in the weather, and had to change my tillage.

I'm a small guy, and only keep about 80 acres max under the plow. All in Haygrazer. Lately I've cut back a bit, and don't plant as much. I quit selling hay, and just feed my cows these days.

I used to plow down during the Winter, or late Fall. Generally after a good rain, and a few days for it to dry out enough to get on the ground.

Then I'd let it mellow over the remainder of the Winter, and disc it down in the Spring, spread fertilizer, disc it in, springtooth, then plant.

I noticed the weather patterns changing. Not too hot, too wet, but a mixture of both. You couldn't rely on past patterns that were usual for decades.

I switched to an offset disc. Fast machine.......on and off the field when weather permits. I cut my tillage hours big time. I had to. You gotta work when you can work these days. The weather has become that erratic. I don't like an offset, but it is what it is.

Yields........................

Used to have two cuttings per year, like clockwork. Plant, harvest, topdress, cut again in Sept. Not anymore. Late planting due to weather, late harvest due to weather.....and worst of all, drought out of the blue. We had a coupla years when even Haygrazer wouldn't make. Not a pleasant experience having to buy hay.

I'm seeing weeds I never saw before, and I'm getting overrun in some areas on the pasture with blackberries. Something is going on.

We're extra wet right now, and I'm thinking this is gonna be followed by extra dry. It's sort of scary.

We had a Winter that was erratic. Super warm days, with super cold days interspersed. It was Hell on the livestock.

When I was a kid, and well into my adult life, I always wondered at the workings of the internal combustion engine. My big question was...&#8230;.."Can we keep running these things, what with all the oxygen they consume". It was a kids question, and lingered. Turns out, it wasn't the oxygen going in, it's the crap coming out. I never considered this. Now I do.

I don't know what the soil implications are. I'd imagine you'd be seeing more damage from fungus if we're in the middle of a wet spell.

I can tell you one thing for sure...&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;..The crazy wet spells play Hell with fertilizer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I run a preplant when planting Haygrazer. 18-46-0. Usually a winner.

Nowdays, the doggone urea gets washed away with heavy rain, and you see slim spots in the field. Urea is highly mobile. It's winding up somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico.

Used to plant by the 2nd week in April. That's a pipe dream these days. Too doggone wet to get out there, and if it's dry......you gotta wait because the forecast calls for days of heavy rain. Wash the seed out. EVEN WHEN PLANTED WITH AN OLD STYLE HOE DRILL AT ABOUT 2" DEPTH.

Sumpin' goin' on, and it ain't good.


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## farmersamm (Nov 2, 2017)

Then ya gotta consider the overreaction to this thing 

The "Greenies" wanna go all electric. Gonna save the planet with electric cars. My butt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just WTF does that lektricity come from?????????????? Mostly from fossil fuel burning plants. Gotta make the sparks somewhere.

And just how much lektricity gonna need to be generated to run those lil' "green" cars??????????? MONDO folks!!! Ain't no free lunch.

They gotta answer though...&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;.solar panels, and Newklear.

First off...&#8230;&#8230;.most folks don't have the scratch to install 30K worth of panels on their roof.

Nucleoid power comes with a high risk. Thousands of years half life on the waste they generate.

And if'n ya got an accident...&#8230;&#8230;.ask those folks near Chernobyl, and Fukawhatever, how that worked out.

Do I got the answers...&#8230;...no. But I'm sure thinking about what's goin' on. And it worries me.


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## farmersamm (Nov 2, 2017)

Lemme try to mellow this out.

Yer cows don't care what Party you belong too. They're mostly Independants.

_I_ could care less about donkeys 'n elephants. Not when it comes to this.

I figure a guy should just hedge his bets, and prepare for the unexpected. The world is gonna keep on spinning whether you/I make a living, or not. We're on our own, and always have been. I'm third generation on this place, and it's always been the same.


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

KYhaymaker said:


> There is near 100% scientific consensus that there was an ice age around ten thousand years ago. Then it warmed up, way more than the glibal warming gurus are worried about now. Man didnt cause that 10,000 years ago, and likely arent causing it now. Correlation does not equal causation.
> 
> Nature has cycles, and random variation. While we have a responsibility to be good stewards, we aren't as important as we think.
> 
> What we can do is adapt to what is in front of us.


You're right. At that time, glaciers extended as far south as Springfield, Ill. The Great Lakes were carved by glaciers.

Ralph


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## Hayjosh (Mar 24, 2016)

KYhaymaker said:


> and likely arent causing it now. Correlation does not equal causation.





KYhaymaker said:


> There is near 100% scientific consensus that there was an ice age around ten thousand years ago. Then it warmed up, way more than the glibal warming gurus are worried about now. Man didnt cause that 10,000 years ago, and likely arent causing it now. Correlation does not equal causation.
> 
> Nature has cycles, and random variation. While we have a responsibility to be good stewards, we aren't as important as we think.
> 
> What we can do is adapt to what is in front of us.


But when it did warm up, lots of things died.

https://skepticalscience.com/climate-change-little-ice-age-medieval-warm-period.htm


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## KYhaymaker (Jun 7, 2018)

And lots of things lived, and thrived and many new possibilitiies arrived because of that change. Our lives are but a snapshot in geologic time. In our hubris we believe that any change that doesnt suit us is automatically bad. The last warming period was terrible for some cold weather species but yet you and all of us are benefitting tremendously by the glaciers receding. The land you are now farming was covered in many feet of ice. Billions of creatures have lived that couldnt have if we still had ice on the middle lattitudes.

I dont attach moral value to nature. The earth will warm and cool, flood and drought, all without acknowledging my presence, asking my permission, or responding to my complaints. It may feel personal but it isnt, any more than its not personal when a coyote kills a calf. Nature is as brutal as it is beautiful.

My concern with global warming isnt what nature will do to me, but what other men will do to me. I believe that the worst evil ever perpetrated upon mankind is the tyranny of socialist/communist ideology. It has killed more people and placed more people in bondage than any other idea in human history. The use of force against a person, with the "I know whats best for you/this is for your own good" justification is responsible for vast amounts of misery. I find it curious that the politics of global warming match almost perfectly with the goals of socialism, and that the "cure" for global warming is unsurprisingly less capitalism, more socialism, less freedom, redistribution of wealth from the west to the east, and the need to yield national sovereignty to an international cabal of elites.

I find that tyrannical men with their heart set on my money and my liberty always seem to find a convenient reason to justify their theft and force.

So in that sense, I agree with you. Man IS more dangerous than the weather, whatever it may be.


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## Hayjosh (Mar 24, 2016)

KYhaymaker said:


> And lots of things lived, and thrived and many new possibilitiies arrived because of that change. Our lives are but a snapshot in geologic time. In our hubris we believe that any change that doesnt suit us is automatically bad. The last warming period was terrible for some cold weather species but yet you and all of us are benefitting tremendously by the glaciers receding. The land you are now farming was covered in many feet of ice. Billions of creatures have lived that couldnt have if we still had ice on the middle lattitudes.
> 
> I dont attach moral value to nature. The earth will warm and cool, flood and drought, all without acknowledging my presence, asking my permission, or responding to my complaints. It may feel personal but it isnt, any more than its not personal when a coyote kills a calf. Nature is as brutal as it is beautiful.
> 
> ...


Then you accept the science, but do not like the response to it, if I'm understanding this correctly?


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## KYhaymaker (Jun 7, 2018)

The science? There have been multiple instances of fraudulent manipulation of the data. Even if there weren't, 100% of the global warming argument is the correlation of the rise of human industry with rising temperature, again assuming the data is honest which we know in some cases it isnt. That is their entire premise.

Every honest scientist understands that correlation does not necessarily mean causation. These same scientists universally acknowledge an intense global warming in the past that was much larger than the current one and this previous warming could not possibly have been caused by human activity. Yet we are supposed to ignore that fact, and believe that this time we are at fault and that catastrophe will ensue if we dont give up more tax dollars, accept more regulation of our lives, and redistribute power and wealth across the world in accordance with these predilections of doom.

Yeah, color me sceptical.

I'm not convinced the data is pure, considering the sources and the governments and institutions that fund the studies. You want to lose all your future grant money? Simply question global warming and watch your career go down the tubes. Look at the state of our universities and tell me political correctness is not the most important attribute for success.

Im not convinced that even if the data is correct and the warming is real that we are the cause, since this has happened before and we certainly didn't cause it then..

I'm not convinced that even if the warming is real, that it is something we have a moral obligation to stop. Like any natural change there will be losers, but there will also be winners. The only constant in nature is change. A disaster for polar bears may be a boon for life in Siberia. How many ardent global warming activists would opt for a return of glacial ice to the Ohio Valley?

So no, Im not convinced of the science. I am, however, 100% convinced that men in power will use this issue, regardless of the truth, to make more rules for me to follow while they steal more of my stuff. I spent too much time in government service, and I know how they think.


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Thanks for your service to our country KYhaymaker......


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## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

Hayjosh said:


> But when it did warm up, lots of things died.
> 
> https://skepticalscience.com/climate-change-little-ice-age-medieval-warm-period.htm


Yeah, but of course that article blames it on human-caused climate change. 

30-40 years ago, when all the big trucks and heavy equipment were spewing billions of tons of black soot and cars were spewing all kinds of air pollution and factories and power plants were NOT running smoke stack scrubbers and the only solar panel in the world was on the NASA space station, why didn't we have global warming? In fact, back then, they were talking about another ICE AGE!!!!
Now we have DPF's/DEF's, super low emissions cars, smoke stack scrubbers, and billions of square feet of solar panels, recycling, less fossil fuels and NOW they claim the Earth is warming due to man-made reasons? 
Doesn't that seem ass backwards?


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## endrow (Dec 15, 2011)

farmersamm said:


> This is probably not gonna earn me a lotta friends I guess.
> 
> I sorta saw the writing on the wall about maybe 7yrs ago.
> 
> ...


And you are in that vicious cycle they speak of every year your soil health declines yields drop . Thats how it was on our farm in the 60s and early 70s. farms here changed there ways most increase soil health and yields every year . Does that soil health have an effect on the environment?? Several years back they were going to pay carbon credits for growing cover crop and notill real $s. I think the boys who make the big tillage tools and tractors to pull them and oil to fuel them weren't happy about it


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## stack em up (Mar 7, 2013)

With the record crop yields after the last several years, I don't know that crops have been affected by anything other than too much or too little moisture. Regards, Mike[/quote]

Since we started strip-tilling and no-tilling, we have seen our organic matter increase which in turn increases the water carrying capacity of our land, problem is it doesn't happen overnight. But this year has been extreme as we get timely rains (like every other freaking day) and it ended up totaling like 2" or some obscene amount. 2016 we had 74" of rain for the growing season, I think we are at around 60" which is still double our normal. Simply cannot hold that much water.


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## KYhaymaker (Jun 7, 2018)

Stack em thought about following your sig line but couldnt afford the family it would produce this year.


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## farmersamm (Nov 2, 2017)

endrow said:


> And you are in that vicious cycle they speak of every year your soil health declines yields drop . Thats how it was on our farm in the 60s and early 70s. farms here changed there ways most increase soil health and yields every year . Does that soil health have an effect on the environment?? Several years back they were going to pay carbon credits for growing cover crop and notill real $s. I think the boys who make the big tillage tools and tractors to pull them and oil to fuel them weren't happy about it


I have reliable yields when I can plant, and harvest in a timely manner. It's the changes in weather patterns that are killing me.

Tonnage/bales per acre haven't changed PER CUTTING CYCLE. My problem is, I'm losing cutting cycles. You can't bale Haygrazer once a season, and justify the inputs.









I guess that's maybe an unfair statement, or a stupid one. I get what I put in, but I depend on more. I need that second cutting.

We're in an area that has heavy Johnson Grass. Only efficient way to live with it is to till it, then get on the field fast and plant. The Sorghum-Sudan will outgrow it, provide a canopy, and stunt it. I don't see chemicals as an option (which I believe would be a requirement for no-till in this situation). Add to this......I'm on clay...either hard as iron, or bottomless when wet. Chemicals aren't the answer (Well :lol: , don't tell Monsanto that). Double cropping (Wheat in winter, followed by Haygrazer in spring) has no appeal either. The wheat has no hay value to me, too low a yield....and to graze it over the winter, I'm looking at some pretty good compaction. Then the wheat comes off in May if you're baling it, and that puts me behind on planting the Haygrazer in April.

I don't expect the environment to turn into an oven overnite. That's just plain silly, and often used as a talking point when denying climate change.

It's the more-than-usual unpredictability of the weather patterns that concerns me.


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## farmersamm (Nov 2, 2017)

Speaking strictly about soil I guess.

The only un-amended soil on this place is the pasture land.

I'm seeing (I think) a decline in broadleaf plants the cattle will eat. I don't know my plants, but I do observe what they eat.

It seems that we're constantly shifting from mini droughts to extremely wet spells. During the droughts, the broadleaf plants take a hit, and the weeds move in. Weeds are way more efficient at utilizing what little moisture is available during a dry period.

Some of the broadleaf's are legumes I believe. Add a bit to the soil.

When these plants are killed by drought, the weeds thrive in their place. Cows eat around these weeds, and they gain a permanent foothold.

Yeah, I can spray, but I figure somethin' that smells as bad as 2-4-D can't be good for the cows, and probably isn't too good for me in my burger. Just a hunch (I'm no dam greenie). Besides, the chemicals will kill what good broadleaf's you got left.

Next spring the sprayer gets a new set of hoses and nozzles. I'm losing the battle, and gotta do it.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

2-4d is one of the oldest herbicides on the market.....and safest.

Regards, Mike


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## endrow (Dec 15, 2011)

farmersamm said:


> Speaking strictly about soil I guess.
> 
> The only un-amended soil on this place is the pasture land.
> 
> ...


 I got to agree with you there I honestly feel we are seeing more weather extremes. 
I'm 60 years old and talk to people that are 80 a lot and no one ever remember seeing a year where it rained just about every day from July 21st to September 15th. Heat, drought and flood. I think we're seeing more extremes. I agree on spraying the pastures too....... I was raised in a family that always hated chemicals and herbicides sprayed. My mom's brother died at 34 years old. It was a 1960 and he became ill was hospitalized and died in just a couple days it was a very mysterious death at the time they did know what caused it. He was the guy doing all the spraying on the farm and handling a lot of the early weed herbicide insecticide . They farmed 400 Acres back there he handled a lot of stuff. My grandpa was a good farmer with a big operation he was terribly better up until the time I was in about 10th grade in high school he would allow no Farm chemicals. Half of everything was in Hay and we mobile are plowed and cultivated all the row crops for years. He mowed all the pastures every 30 days and paid men and believe me I did my share to take thistles out of the pastures with shovels. The pastures were good but the Farmland was in a terrible shape from erosion. My uncle and I went a hundred percent the opposite direction started minimum till the day he died... but to make a long story short my mom still complains to no end what I spray the pastures . And put the cows on them a week or two later she feels just like vol. I do hate Grazon P and D that's no secret


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Well...

I have an overabundance of engineers in the family, which is much preferable to an overabundance of lawyers I suppose.

Have three CPA's in the family as well.

The CPA's aren't too worried about it. The engineers are pretty certain something could be made to capture and make better use of the carbon in the atmosphere.

Only one of the engineers is really worried about it, and after ten years of working at Ford he still can't change a flat to save his life, he finally got a job in the aerospace industry as thats where most of his degrees were for, he was on the team that designed the gearboxes on the Ospry for tilting the wings, you know the one that liked to crash all the time at first. This uncle doesn't even like natural gas as he thinks too much of its leaked into the atmosphere which is causing global warming. This is the same uncle who spent a small fortune on the CFL bulbs when they first came out and changed a ton of bulbs in my grandparents house. He never could figure out why the ones in the touch lamps kept burning out even though it said right on the packages DO NOT USE WITH DIMMER. That particular uncle may not be as bright as he thinks he is, Maybe even on the dim side far as common sense.

Have one last uncle that married into the family that's kinda the lone sheep far as profession. Head is screwed on straight even after being surrounded by the loonies and lefties in California for over four decades. He's been on several boards of his chosen profession and even the president of more than a few of them. His wife (my aunt, one of the CPA's) has done the same so they've seen a lot of the world while traveling for one symposium or another and writing at least part of it off as business. Good head on his shoulders, he searched for just the right place for years to build a house, couldn't be too close to a cliff so it wouldn't slide off in a deluge, also couldn't be near any cliffs, large hills or mountains so it couldn't be buried when those slid away. Also had to have a certain type of bedrock in case of a major earthquake, also couldn't be too close to any woods or forest in case of drought and wildfires. The leftie engineer uncle would have never thought of any of that.

Anyways, the sane uncle is a geologist, used to dealing with stuff millions of years old or that took millions of years to accomplish. He just keeps his peace or walks away when the one uncle starts his global warming rant, his been surrounded by em long enough in california to know you ain't changing their minds and it ain't worth causing any ill will with his wife by agueing with her little brother. Besides Uncle Bob has a list of stuff that man aint gonna stop no way no how. Asteroid collisions with earth, super volcanoes, major tectonic shifts etc etc. Bobs doomsday scenarios are a lot scarier than the engineer uncles.


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## hog987 (Apr 5, 2011)

My biggest problem with climate change/global warming is this. The government's are telling us the only way to solve it is to give them more power, money and control. Tell me this. When has it ever been a good thing for the common people to keep giving the government's more power, money and control? But History is full of revolts and revolutions where the people took back the power, money and control from the government.


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## Three44s (May 21, 2016)

"I am from the government and am here to help"

Help who? Yourself?

I say that once the Global Warming promoters were caught cheating the cat was outa the bag!

And worse, Owl Gore was riding around in the Aflac jet espousing we all quit burning fossils fuels. Now if he showed up ridin' a bicycle it might have been more believable. If he was not in the business of selling carbon credits he might be more believable. .... AND if he did not own two or three mansions burning more electricity than a small town, he might be taken more seriously right now.

Now Mr. Gore is not the only one profiting from chasing us little lemmings off the cliff ..... count each and every one of the scientists on the take! Grant money in their coffers is at stake.

If Global Warming was such a deal why would the United States suffer under the previous White House's Climate Change deal with the rest of the world while the worst polluters would be given passes?

Where there is stink, there is usually something rotten!

Best regards

Three44s


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