Increased drought portends lower future crop yields in US midwest

Newswise via North Carolina State University: Increasingly harsh drought conditions in the U.S. Midwest’s Corn Belt may take a serious toll on corn and soybean yields over the next half-century, according to research published today in the journal Science. Corn yields could drop by 15 to 30 percent, according to the paper’s estimates; soybean yield losses would be less severe.

North Carolina State University’s Roderick Rejesus, associate professor of agricultural and resource economics and a co-author of the Science paper, says that corn and soybean yields show increasing sensitivity to drought, with yields struggling in dry conditions in Iowa, Illinois and Indiana during the 1995 to 2012 study period.

“Yield increases are getting smaller in bad conditions,” Rejesus said. “Agronomic and genetic crop improvements over the years help a lot when growing conditions are good, but have little effect when growing conditions are poor, like during droughts.” U.S. corn and soybeans account for approximately 40 and 35 percent of global production, respectively, making the results important to the world’s food supply.

Using field data over an 18-year period, the researchers point to the effects of vapor pressure deficit (VPD) on corn and soybean yields. VPD includes
temperature and humidity measures; extremes at either end of this variable signify drought or too much water for crops. Akin to the sweet spot on a baseball bat, the best VPD condition is a value in its middle range.

Some 29 climate estimates modeled in the paper suggest that VPD will rise significantly over the next 40 years, bringing on more severe drought conditions. The researchers ran the same tests using the Palmer Drought Severity Index, another widely used measure capturing nationwide temperature and humidity, and reported similar results. They also ran the same tests for a broader group of Corn Belt states to include South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas. Those tests confirmed the results found in Iowa, Illinois and Indiana....

NASA image of crops growing in Kansas. Healthy, growing crops are green. Corn would be growing into leafy stalks by late June (when this photo was taken). Sorghum, which resembles corn, grows more slowly and would be much smaller and therefore, possibly paler. 

Building better soybeans for a hot, dry, hungry world

NASA: A new study shows that soybean plants can be redesigned to increase crop yields while requiring less water and helping to offset greenhouse gas warming. The study is the first to demonstrate that a major food crop can be modified to meet multiple goals at the same time.

The study, led by Darren Drewry of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., used an advanced vegetation model and high-performance computer optimization techniques. It found that by redesigning soybean plants in various ways, it was possible to increase soybean productivity by seven percent without using more water. Soybean plants also could be redesigned either to use 13 percent less water or to reflect 34 percent more light back to space without a loss of crop yield. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation with support from JPL and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

"My intuition would have told me that some of these goals are mutually exclusive -- that there is a fundamental tradeoff between increasing productivity and conserving water," said Drewry. "We are now able to say that there actually is a combination of traits that will make progress toward all of these goals simultaneously." The study by Drewry and coauthors Praveen Kumar and Stephen Long (both of the University of Illinois) was published April 4 in the journal Global Change Biology.

The research comes at a time when global food security is threatened by population growth and climate change. The United Nations estimates that food production will need to increase 70 percent by 2050 to meet the world's food needs. Today, yields of major crops are increasing slowly or not at all. Soybeans are the world's most important protein crop...

USDA photo of soybean seeds

Brazil soy, corn production overcome drought

Seed Daily via AFP: Weeks of drought and heat have hit Brazil's soy and corn production, but the agriculture ministry on Tuesday still predicted a record 2014 harvest. Corn production is set to total 75.5 million metric tons, down from a January estimate of 79 million, state food supply agency Conab said in its monthly report.

Soy production will be 90 million tons, just off a January forecast of 90.3 million, and still 10.4 percent higher than last year, Conab said. For soy, grain and rice combined, Conab now expects 2013 to show a 3.6 percent increase overall, to 193.6 million tons.

Last month it had forecast a combined total of 196.7 million tons -- but January saw very low rainfall in much of the giant country. Brazil's Institute of Geography and Statistics gave its own 2014 forecast of 193.9 million tons, three percent up on last year's 188.2 million tons, which was, itself, the best return on record....

Soybean photo from the US Department of Agriculture

Smithsonian reports GMO soybean pollen threatens mexican honey sales

A press release from the Smithsonian Newsdesk: Mexico is the fourth largest honey producer and fifth largest honey exporter in the world. A Smithsonian researcher and colleagues helped rural farmers in Mexico to quantify the genetically modified organism (GMO) soybean pollen in honey samples rejected for sale in Germany. Their results will appear Feb. 7 in the online journal Scientific Reports.

David Roubik, senior staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and colleagues developed the ability to identify pollen grains in honey in Panama and Mexico during the 1980s and 1990s when they studied the effects of the arrival of Africanized bees on native bees. “Nobody else can do this kind of work in the ‘big field’ environment and be confident that what they are seeing are soybean pollen grains,” said Roubik. They found that six honey samples from nine hives in the Campeche region contained soy pollen in addition to pollen from many wild plant species. The pollen came from crops near the bee colonies in several small apiaries.

Due to strict European regulations, rural farmers in the Mexican Yucatan face significant price cuts or outright rejection of their honey crop when their product contains pollen from GMO crops that are not for human consumption. The regional agricultural authorities, furthermore, seemed unaware that bees visited flowering soybeans to collect nectar and pollen.

 “As far as we could determine, every kind of GMO soybean grown in Campeche is approved for human consumption,” said Roubik. “But the importers sometimes still just say ‘forget it’ and do no further analysis to match GMO pollen grains with their source.”

... “We cautiously interpret these results as significant for elsewhere in Mexico where some five times the GMO soy grown in Campeche is found and beekeeping is alive and well, not to mention the rest of the world,” said Roubik. “Bee colonies act as extremely sensitive environmental indicators. Bees from a single colony may gather nectar and pollen resources from flowers in a 200-square-kilometer area. With an economy based on subsistence agriculture associated with honey production, the social implications of this shift in the status of honey are likely to be contentious and have profound implications for beekeeping in general.”....

Bees pollinated on a flower in Tula, Mexico, shot by AlejandroLinaresGarcia, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

China approves imports of GM soybean from Brazil

Seed Daily via AFP: China, the main buyer of Brazilian soybeans, has approved imports of three genetically modified varieties of the crop, to be produced on a large scale in the South American country.

The Agriculture Ministry said Monday that China gave its green light for the Intacta RR2 PRO variety, which can resist pests such as a type of caterpillar, as well as for the herbicide-resistant CV 127 and Liberty Link.

The agreement followed a meeting of Chinese and Brazilian agriculture ministers in Beijing. Many Brazilian soybean producers were awaiting China's approval before embarking on production of these genetically modified varieties, the ministry said.

Of the 7.2 million tons of soybean exported by Brazil in April, more than 5.6 million went to China. "This approval is even more important in view of the spread of the Helicoverpa armigera caterpillar in several Brazilian states," the ministry said in a statement....

Soybean seeds, shot by Scott Bauer of the US Department of Agriculture

Foreign demand for beef, soybeans adds pressure on Amazon forest

Alister Doyle in Reuters: Rising foreign demand for beef and soybeans will tempt Brazil to clear more of the Amazon rainforest, in a reversal of recent success in slowing forest losses, a study said on Thursday.

About 30 percent of deforestation in Brazil in the decade to 2010 was due to farmers and ranchers seeking land to expand export production of beef and soybeans, against about 20 percent in the 1990s, the report said.

"Trade is emerging as a key driver of deforestation in Brazil," according to experts at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research, Oslo (Cicero). "This may indirectly contribute to loss of the forests that industrialized countries are seeking to protect through international agreements," they wrote in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

Exports of beef and soybeans accounted for 2.7 billion metric tons (1 metric ton = 1.102 tons) of carbon emissions caused by Brazil's deforestation in the decade to 2010, the report said. That exceeds greenhouse gas emissions of a nation such as Egypt over the same period....

Beef cuts in Brazil, by MarioM, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Argentine soybean yield goes below budget

Seed Daily via UPI: Argentina's soybean yield will be much lower than expected, affecting national income projections based on exports in the coming months. The government blamed drought for the downturn. Argentine agriculture suffered from dry weather most of 2012 but some relief was seen after February rains.

Argentina's earnings projections are far from clear because of the reported setback to timely irrigation. Trading on the International Exchange in Chicago is mixed because of poor crop results from across South America and the United States. Soybean futures were supported by reports of long delays at Brazilian ports and mixed weather elsewhere in South America, including major exporter Argentina.

The Rosario Chamber of Commerce in Santa Fe province estimated Argentina will produce 48 million tons of soybeans in the 2012-13 season. "There is at least a million tons reduction against previous forecasts," Agriculture.com reported on its website....

An Argentine soy field, shot by Alfonso, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Drought ready to deal another blow to US midwest corn, soy crops

Christopher Doering in the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader: After suffering through the worst drought in decades last year, farmers throughout South Dakota should brace for another round of hot and dry conditions in 2013, some weather forecasters warned.

However a new weather outlook will be released Thursday “which will have a little more indication of what the national folks are thinking,” says South Dakota Climatologist Dennis Todey. In the near term, “what we are seeing at this point indicates there will be some recovery in the spring, especially in the early spring, and more so in the eastern and northern parts of the state,” he says.

“As we get on into the summer, the message gets a little hazier. I will be curious to see what the outlook says,” Todey says.

As the spring planting season nears, forecasters have expressed concern that much of the Midwest could remain starved for moisture, though they caution it’s still too early to safely predict the weather several months out. The Midwest could see a late summer increase in rainfall, but the relief will be much too late to help farmers, according to one prediction from a University of Missouri researcher.

“The continuing conditions really look like they’re setting up for a very similar level of drought in the Midwest and West,” Roger Pulwarty, a director with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who focuses on drought, told lawmakers on the Senate Agriculture Committee....

From NASA, a satellite image of crops growing in Kansas in 2001, under better conditions than exist today

Dead or alive? A new test to determine viability of soybean rust spores

Seed Daily via SPX: Spores from Asian soybean rust (Phakopsora pachyrhizi) pose a serious threat to soybean production in the United States because they can be blown great distances by the wind. University of Illinois researchers have developed a method to determine whether these spores are viable.

"Finding spores is different from finding spores that are living and able to infect plants," said USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientist and crop sciences professor Glen Hartman.

Soybean rust, which first appeared in Japan at the beginning of the 20th century, is a foliar infector that reduces plant photosynthetic activity and causes defoliation, premature death, and high yield loss. An obligate pathogen, it grows only on plants and dies when the plant dies or is harvested.

The fungus first appeared In the U.S. in 2004. It is concentrated in the southern states where it is able to overwinter on kudzu. Spraying with fungicides is the only way to control it because resistant soybean cultivars are not yet available to U.S. farmers....

A photo of soybean rust from the US Department of Agriculture

Record heat wave devastates US corn and soy crops, drives food prices higher

Jaelithe Judy in Care 2: As a record heat wave baked the earth across the Midwestern United States this month, farmers in America’s bread basket looked on their bone dry fields and wilting crops with growing dread. This past June was the tenth driest on record in the U.S., creating severe drought conditions across several states, and the 10-day spell of unusual, unrelenting heat from the end of June through the first week of July significantly increased the stress on food crops already damaged by drought, including much of the nation’s corn and soy supply.

The United States is the world’s foremost producer of corn, one of the world’s most important food crops. Originally domesticated in Mexico, corn thrives in ordinary summer heat, and it can withstand occasional high daytime temperatures. But the temperatures during this heat wave were anything but ordinary for North America at this time of the year. With temperatures 10-20 degrees above average, the heat wave toppled more than 3,800 all-time records nationwide. Many areas experienced more than a week straight of daytime temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) and nighttime temperatures that failed to fall below the 80s.

...As a consequence of weeks of serious drought followed by severe high temperatures, U.S. corn farmers may be facing one of the worst crop losses in history. Monday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that heat and drought have significantly damaged the corn crop in 18 states, and nearly a third of the corn in those states is now rated in poor or very poor condition. Nationwide, only 40 percent of the corn crop is considered by the USDA to be in good condition.

Soybeans, too, have suffered during this season’s prolonged high temperatures. Monday fears of a significantly damaged 2012 crop pushed soy prices to an all-time record high.

Because the U.S. exports staple food crops to many other countries, the consequences of this year’s record-breaking hot dry summer will almost certainly push food prices higher not just within the country, but worldwide, for the rest of the year....

A scorched corn field near Jonesville, Louisiana, this one from August 2008, shot by Billy Hathorn, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Drought hits Argentine corn and soy crops

Seed Daily via UPI: Drought is claiming a heavy toll on Argentina's corn and soy crops, creating new problems for the economy amid an increasingly fraught confrontation between farmer groups and the government. Drought isn't a new threat to Argentine agriculture and has affected crops with varying severity over the past three years but officials said this year's yields could be the worst in 15 years.

Dry, hot weather conditions are blamed on La Nina, the weather phenomenon that is the opposite of El Nino. The last major La Nina phase began in mid-2007 and lasted through 2009 but its adverse effects returned in parts of Latin America in 2010 and in other parts in 2011.

Venezuela is another regional country affected by La Nina's vagaries. Drought-related yield reports from across the country earlier led the Agriculture Ministry in Buenos Aires to slash soy output forecast to 42.9 million tons. Economists from Argentina's Rosario grain exchange said they were revising the soy harvest estimates further downward -- from 40.9 million tons to 40.5 million tons for soy planted in the last season.

Rosario's latest figures represented a sharp revision of yield forecasts issued as recently as May and a drastic departure from earlier estimates that predicted soy yields of 52 million-53 million tons. Analysts said that continued drought conditions made it likely the yield forecasts could be revised again....

A soy field in Argentina, shot by Maggilautaro, public domain

Drought-resistant Argentine soy raises hopes, concerns

Liliana Samuel in PhysOrg: Researchers in Argentina have isolated a drought-resistant sunflower gene and spliced it into soy, bolstering hopes for improved yields as the South American agricultural powerhouse grapples with global warming.

Raquel Chan's team identified the HAHB4 gene that makes sunflowers resist dry conditions and implanted it in rockcress flowering plants known as arabidopsis, whose resistance to drought increased considerably.

Her team has signed an agreement with Argentine firm Bioceres, which is co-owned by over 230 agricultural producers, to use and exploit the gene. The firm has conducted tests on soy, wheat and corn crops.

Soy is the biggest cash crop in Argentina, a major exporter of byproducts like soybean oil and flour, but the prospect of creating a transgenic soy plant has some experts concerned about the potential for environmental harm.

Supporters of the technology say the boost in productivity could mean as much as $10 billion in added profits each year, particularly after a severe drought recently slashed Argentina's soy output by more than a third.

But the environmental advocacy group Greenpeace said the transgenic seeds would promote deforestation and the expansion of soy crops into new regions such as Patagonia, as well as cause a "significant loss" in biodiversity and force thousands of farmers and native people to relocate.

And because it is genetically modified, the new soy seed would have little to no prospects of being sold in markets where such crops are opposed or outlawed, as in Europe....

Harvesting soy in Argentina, shot by Arpatt, under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication

Drought spreads to Brazil, crop yields hit

Terra Daily via UPI: Drought has spread from Argentina and Paraguay to Brazil and is hitting soy yields at a time of concerns that regional economic growth may suffer as pressures mount on commodity prices.

Argentine yields of soy were affected by drought and labor disputes in that country are making farmers and grain traders jittery. Drought caused widespread economic dislocation in Paraguay, which was also hit by cattle disease.

Analysts said drought-related developments in Brazil had led to lower yield estimates, slicing about 2.8 million tons off an original estimate of 67.1 million tons for this year's harvest. The revised estimates are subject to further review, said the analysts.

Soy oil has gained importance in the energy market as a feedstock for the booming international biofuels sector....

Biodiesel from soy, shot by Leandro Maranghetti Lourenço, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Clock ticking for rains to save Argentine soy crop

Hugh Bronstein in Reuters: Unrelenting sun in Argentina has scorched as much as a fifth of its corn crop and the drought will start biting into the country's vast soy harvest unless rains come to the rescue this month or next.

Benchmark Chicago corn and soybean prices have both rallied more than 10 percent in the past three weeks as a hot, dry southern hemisphere summer has roasted grain fields across Argentina's legendary Pampas farm and cattle region.

Argentina is the world's second-largest corn exporter and third-largest soybean seller. So with rising food prices threatening to push more people around the world into poverty and hunger, global markets are watching the South American country's spotless blue horizon for signs of rain. The fiscal health of Argentina's government also hinges on revenue from the country's biggest export, soy.

Late-season corn planting has ground to a halt in Argentina while soy farmers have started to compare this year to the nightmarish drought of 2008/09, which cost them 30 percent of their harvest. That year, corn growers lost 40 percent of their crop.

...The outlook for soybeans, Argentina's larger and more essential crop, remains up in the air. The country exports about half of the world's soyoil, used for cooking and in the booming international biofuels sector...

A soy field in Zarate, Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina. Shot by Maggilautaro, Wikimedia Commons, public domain