While a recent report tells us current droughts in the western USA hardly make the top ten, we have this from Stanford University, a claim about drought related crop insurance claims that doesn’t seem to match data on national yields and trend. While the 2012 drought had an impact, 2013 saw the third highest corn yield on record.
Data: http://quickstats.nass.usda.gov/results/90C69DEC-38D6-31B4-9953-4C6EB5E82D79?pivot=short_desc
U.S. corn yields are growing more sensitive to heat and drought, according to research by environmental scientist David Lobell. Farmers are faced with difficult tradeoffs in adapting to a changing climate in which unfavorable weather will become more common.
By Laura Seaman (Stanford writer)
Research by David Lobell of Stanford’s Center on Food Security and the Environment indicates corn harvests will be affected by drought conditions, which are occurring more often.
Corn yields in the central United States have become more sensitive to drought conditions in the past two decades, according to Stanford research.
The study, which appears in the journal Science, was led by Stanford’s David Lobell, associate professor of environmental Earth system science and associate director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment. “The Corn Belt is phenomenally productive,” Lobell said, referring to the region of Midwestern states where much of the country’s corn is grown. “But in the past two decades we saw very small yield gains in non-irrigated corn under the hottest conditions. This suggests farmers may be pushing the limits of what’s possible under these conditions.”
He predicted that at current levels of temperature sensitivity, crops could lose 15 percent of their yield within 50 years, or as much as 30 percent if crops continue the trend of becoming more sensitive over time.
As Lobell explained, the quest to maximize crop yields has been a driving force behind agricultural research as the world’s population grows and climate change puts pressure on global food production. One big challenge for climate science is whether crops can adapt to climate change by becoming less sensitive to hotter and drier weather.
“The data clearly indicate that drought stress for corn and soy comes partly from low rain, but even more so from hot and dry air. Plants have to trade water to get carbon from the air to grow, and the terms of that trade become much less favorable when it’s hot,” said Lobell, also the lead author for a chapter in the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report, which details a consensus view on the current state and fate of the world’s climate.
Rain, temperature, humidity
The United States produces 40 percent of the world’s corn, mostly in Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana. As more than 80 percent of U.S. agricultural land relies on natural rainfall rather than irrigation, corn farmers in these regions depend on precipitation, air temperature and humidity for optimal plant growth.
According to the research, over the last few decades, corn in the United States has been modified with new traits, like more effective roots that better access water and built-in pest resistance to protect against soil insects. These traits allow farmers to plant seeds closer together in a field, and have helped farmers steadily raise yields in typical years.
But in drought conditions, densely planted corn can suffer higher stress and produce lower yields. In contrast, soybeans have not been planted more densely in recent decades and show no signs of increased sensitivity to drought, the report noted.
Drought conditions are expected to become even more challenging as temperatures continue to rise throughout the 21st century, the researchers said.
Lobell said, “Recent yield progress is overall a good news story. But because farm yields are improving fastest in favorable weather, the stakes for having such weather are rising. In other words, the negative impacts of hot and dry weather are rising at the same time that climate change is expected to bring more such weather.”
Extensive data
Lobell’s team examined an unprecedented amount of detailed field data from more than 1 million USDA crop insurance records between 1995 and 2012.
“The idea was pretty simple,” he said. “We determined which conditions really matter for corn and soy yields, and then tracked how farmers were doing at different levels of these conditions over time. But to do that well, you really need a lot of data, and this dataset was a beauty.”
Lobell said he hopes that the research can help inform researchers and policymakers so they can make better decisions.
“I think it’s exciting that data like this now exist to see what’s actually happening in fields. By taking advantage of this data, we can learn a lot fairly quickly,” he said. “Of course, our hope is to improve the situation. But these results challenge the idea that U.S. agriculture will just easily adapt to climate changes because we invest a lot and are really high-tech.”
Lobell and colleagues are also looking at ways crops may perform better under increasingly hot conditions. “But I wouldn’t expect any miracles,” he said. “It will take targeted efforts, and even then gains could be modest. There’s only so much a plant can do when it is hot and dry.”
Laura Seaman is the communications and external relations manager for Stanford’s Center on Food Security and the Environment, a joint program of Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.
For more Stanford experts on climate change and other topics, visit Stanford Experts.
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This graph suggests to me that U.S. corn is far more tolerant of drought now than it was in the dustbowl years:
![CornYieldTrend_US[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/cornyieldtrend_us1.gif)
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Correction to above “Why are we burning CORN in our gas tank?”
Let me read the article and make comments when I get a chance later today.
I forecast the effect of weather on corn, soybeans and wheat for a living.
http://www.marketforum.com/?id=1251466&ss=met
http://www.marketforum.com/?id=1251467&ss=met
Couldn’t resist making some quick comments:
1. Before the drought of 2012, the US Cornbelt had gone a record 24 growing seasons without a widespread major drought. Interesting how that one severe drought get’s so much weighting but 24 years with some of the best weather/growing conditions ever(1993 flooding was one of the big exceptions) gets put lower down.
2,. They state: “The United States produces 40 percent of the world’s corn, mostly in Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana”
In order of production ranking:
1. Iowa
2. Illinois
3. Nebraska
4. Minnesota
5. Indiana
This incorrect statement probably doesn’t effect the results of their study but as soon as I read that statement, I thought “this person can’t possibly know much about growing corn in the Midwest!”
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=State+Rankings+in+Corn+Production+2013&qs=n&form=QBIR&pq=state+rankings+in+corn+production+2013&sc=0-34&sp=-1&sk=#view=detail&id=98F2F77CAE2C9CBF0A648CA2E67644261BA02F3E&selectedIndex=15
“Lobell’s team examined an unprecedented amount of detailed field data from more than 1 million USDA crop insurance records between 1995 and 2012.
“The idea was pretty simple,” he said. “We determined which conditions really matter for corn and soy yields, and then tracked how farmers were doing at different levels of these conditions over time. But to do that well, you really need a lot of data, and this dataset was a beauty.””
Crop insurance coverage and laws have changed a great deal. The criteria to measure has also changed and amount covered has increased greatly, so that claims have soared. Many farmers in the Midwest drought of 2012 actually made more money from the insurance pay out, then they would have growing a decent crop.
This happened as the average price of corn was so high, that even with insurance that paid on 70% of their crop on that price, it was better than 100% of what they would have made on a good crop in an average year(without all the work).
Farmers work hard and take tremendous risk. I have great respect for them. However, the government insurance plan providing protection for them(the government now pays for a large portion of crop insurance), provides more incentives to NOT grow a crop and especially, take advantage of the benefits that didn’t used to be there.
The other thing, weather too cool and wet in the Spring has been a much bigger issue in recent years with regards to farmer decisions on using crop insurance.
http://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/crops/html/a1-57.html
I would really like to see these unprecedented detailed field data reports. Insurance payouts have skyrocketed and the biggest reason is the changes in the insurance(including the fact that tax payers now fund a big portion of the premiums)
“‘ Steven Mosher says:
May 3, 2014 at 6:38 am
C02 is a trace gas. It cant warm the earth or make plants grow.””
Pedantic snark.
Someone please change the baby’s diaper.
Interesting that the start and end of the study was 1995 and 2012. 1995.
What a coincidence, those were the 2 years with the lowest corn yields. 1992 and 1994 had record yields from perfect weather. 1993 had low yields in Iowa and insurance pay outs from too much rain(can’t have that in your study that is assigning damage to hot/dry).
If I wanted to maximize hot and dry by cherry picking, it would be to start at 1995 and end at 2012.
http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2013/01/11/iowas-2012-corn-yield-lowes-since-1995/article
If I was a reviewer of this paper………..I’ve forecast the effects of weather on corn, soybeans and wheat for a living since 1992, I would have rejected it before I was done reading it.
My comments so far, have not even mentioned CO2.
The link they provided for their data, also confirms that 1995 and 2012, the start and end points were cherry picked.
http://quickstats.nass.usda.gov/results/90C69DEC-38D6-31B4-9953-4C6EB5E82D79?pivot=short_desc
If, for instance, I was allowed to cherry pick and used data from 1996 to 2011, the results would have much different……..or any other 2 start/end points.
Other than picking a starting date of 1988, the previous widespread major Cornbelt drought(which would have made the cherry picking blatantly obvious), the years they chose maximized what they were trying to prove.
Maybe I’m crazy, but it occured to me if these so called Climatologists quit obsessing over predicting the temperature a century from now and started to figure out how to accurately predict the rainfall durring the growing season, then the Farmers would know how close to plant their seeds for optimum yeilds. Also if they learn to accurately predict the rainfall over a 3 month period, I’d be more inclined to consider their climate models were more than unicorn farts.
the epa actually have an interesting site on agriculture. Very upbeat!
Farmers will adapt , better information/ knowledge , better practices .
http://www.epa.gov/oecaagct/ag101/printcrop.html
it’s great they even have a quiz at the end.
Well, if doesn’t seem that whatever happened between 1950 and now or 1980 and now was bad for corn Unless you don’t like corn. Looks like like drought tolerance nearly doubled if they still use the same amount of water per acre. I blame fossil fuel driven tractors for the increase in yield.
Lobell said, “Recent yield progress is overall a good news story. But because farm yields are improving fastest in favorable weather, the stakes for having such weather are rising. In other words, the negative impacts of hot and dry weather are rising at the same time that climate change is expected to bring more such weather.””
Clearly, some of the information they supply is not accurate, some is cherry picked/biased. Some shows the opposite of what they conclude.
“He predicted that at current levels of temperature sensitivity, crops could lose 15 percent of their yield within 50 years, or as much as 30 percent if crops continue the trend of becoming more sensitive over time.
The evidence shows the exact opposite. However, if you assume CAGW is going to happen, then you can “speculate” that the last 2 decades in the Cornbelt, which represent the best growing conditions since corn has been grown in that region, “might” change to less favorable……….this is all they are doing.
A 15% to 30% reduction in corn yields within 50 years, based on a non existent trend in the real world is very silly and a quintessential example of extreme alarmism with no empirical data or evidence to support it.
Stephen Mosher wrote, “C02 is a trace gas. It cant warm the earth or make plants grow.”
… techniques of Free-Air Carbon dioxide Enrichment (FACE) have been developed that allow natural or agricultural ecosystems to be fumigated with elevated concentrations of CO2 in the field without use of chambers (Figure 1). As these experiments are the most naturalistic, they should provide the best indication of the responses of plants to increased CO2 under the real-world conditions of the future.
[ … ]
Since photosynthesis and stomatal behavior are central to plant carbon and water metabolism, growth of plants under elevated CO2 leads to a large variety of secondary effects on plant physiology. The availability of additional photosynthate enables most plants to grow faster under elevated CO2, with dry matter production in FACE experiments being increased on average by 17% for the aboveground, and more than 30% for the belowground, portions of plants (Ainsworth & Long 2005; de Graaff et al. 2006). This increased growth is also reflected in the harvestable yield of crops, with wheat, rice and soybean all showing increases in yield of 12–14% under elevated CO2 in FACE experiments (Ainsworth 2008; Long et al. 2006).
http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/effects-of-rising-atmospheric-concentrations-of-carbon-13254108
With respect to recent slowing of the growth of corn yields …
FRINGE STATE YIELD DRAG
While total U.S. corn production climbed by more than 25 percent since 2005 off a 16.6 percent increase in planted area, the national corn yield increased by less than 7.5 percent over the same period.
But lower grade soils are also to blame for much of the persistent underperformance of corn yields at a national level.
Corn yields in the “Top 5″ states have averaged 10 bushels per acre above the national average for the past five years, while the mean yield for the largest corn growers on the fringes of the Midwest, Kansas, South Dakota and North Dakota, is more than 25 bushels an acre below the national average.
This significant underperformance of “Fringe state” yields relative to core Corn State yields has dragged heavily on the national average, especially in recent years when those non-core states have contributed a historically high proportion of corn planted area.
But the likelihood for a reduction in corn plantings on those fringe acres in 2014 is also a major reason why this year’s average corn yield has the potential to pop well above the recent average should growing conditions prove broadly friendly.
http://www.producer.com/daily/analysts-grumble-at-usda-corn-yield-forecast-column/
My suggestion for corn yield growth is trickle irrigation with soda water.
/sorta kidding
Quoting article:
“This graph suggests to me that U.S. corn is far more tolerant of drought now than it was in the dustbowl years:”
———————–
Really now, is that what it suggests?
I don’t think so …… because I think it suggests this, to wit:
“Following World War II, fertilizer use expanded rapidly in the United States, but leveled off in the early 1980s after reaching a peak of 23.7 million nutrient tons in 1981.”
Source: http://www.tfi.org/statistics/statistics-faqs
Mike Borch says:
May 3, 2014 at 5:51 am
I am a corn and soybean farmer from northern iowa. Technology in agriculture is expanding at a very rapid rate. The ability of the plant breeders to produce new and varied corn hybrids is remarkable. The goal is to DOUBLE the yields by 2050. I think there is an excellent chance that will happen if not before. The biggest threat we face is that government will get in our way!
Just so I am clear, are you referring to the government that approved the $956B farm bill in February of this year? That government? The one that established land grant colleges, provides extension agents, and lobbies nations around the world to open their markets to our agricultural products? Is that the government you are complaining about?
Chris says: May 3, 2014 at 12:56 pm
. Mike Borch says:May 3, 2014 at 5:51 am … The biggest threat we face is that government will get in our way!
Just so I am clear, are you referring to the government that approved the $956B farm bill in February of this year? That government? The one that established land grant colleges, provides extension agents, and lobbies nations around the world to open their markets to our agricultural products? Is that the government you are complaining about?
The one subsidizing ADM and unsustainable ethanol and wants to put catalytic converters on cows? Aside from the land-grant colleges, yep.
More butterfly droppings from Stanford.
“..One big challenge for climate science (!) is whether crops can adapt to climate change by becoming less sensitive to hotter and drier weather.”
Isn’t the challenge for farmers and agriculture? Also I look at a graph like that above and I see that only a CAGW cultist could come to such an adverse conclusion. The English of the writer is a little ambiguous, too. Does she really mean the corn is getting more and more sensitive to drought (of the usual intensity) or that it will become affected by drier conditions to come? Maybe they should also put up a graph of drought intensity over the past century which shows less intense droughts than previously. One is left with the erroneous idea that droughts are on the rise. This gets an F.
Mike McMillan says:
I believe Chris says: is referring to the same government that wiped out many farmers in 1980 with the grain embargo.
….”I am a corn and soybean farmer from northern iowa. Technology in agriculture is expanding at a very rapid rate. The ability of the plant breeders to produce new and varied corn hybrids is remarkable. The goal is to DOUBLE the yields by 2050. I think there is an excellent chance that will happen if not before….
The biggest threat we face is that government will get in our way!”….
Bravo!!
Apparently, the good professor understands that “Plants have to trade water to get carbon from the air to grow”. This is the gigantic unacknowledged fact in the Global Warming debate.
Since no one disputes that CO2 is increasing, and that is after all the fundamental reason for the whole alarmist shriek, doesn’t that mean that corn is going to become LESS sensitive to drought?
In short, increasing CO2 is a really GOOD thing. It is making the earth more vibrant and ecosystems more alive and more resistant to problems. Want to literally Go Green? Burn some coal.
The IPCC admitted in AR5 that there has been absolutely no global increasing trend in droughts over the past 50 years.
What the AR5 failed to mention is that increasing CO2 levels will greatly increase crop yields by around 40% once they hit 560ppm and already and that the higher CO2 levels to date have already increased crop yields/global greening by about 16~18%.
The AR5 report also failed to mention that the higher CO2 levels shrink leaf stoma (breathing holes), which decreases moisture loss from plants and allows them to thrive with LESS water requirements.
It’s a well known fact that global precipitation of both snow and rain have increased since the end of the Little Ice Age 163 years ago, due to the 0.75C increase of global temperatures, which have increased ocean evaporation.
During the global warming trend from 1980~1998, there were FIVE El Nino events which greatly increased rainfall patterns in the West and Mid-West during those 18 years. Since 1998, there has only been TWO El Nino events, which has slightly decreased US rainfall in the West and Mid-West over the past 16 years.
We’re about to enter another El Nino event later this year, which will mean the West and Mid-West will be getting more rain/show than they’ll know what to do with….
Rather than storing this surplus rain, the EPA has prevented states from building new and much needed reservoirs. Moreover, the EPA also forces states to dump huge amounts of water from existing reservoirs into rivers to help “save the snail darter and salmon”….
The world has gone insane.
Chris says:
May 3, 2014 at 12:56 pm
Mike Borch says:
“Just so I am clear, are you referring to the government that approved the $956B farm bill in February of this year? That government? The one that established land grant colleges, provides extension agents, and lobbies nations around the world to open their markets to our agricultural products? Is that the government you are complaining about?”
—————————————-
Yes, Chris, that’s precisely, the government that completely distorts price discovery for goods, misallocates land/labor/capital and greatly increases the costs of food throughout the world and kills millions of poor each year from all their subsidies and mindless meddling.
The US government should close down the Department of Agriculture as it is an unconstitutional and unneeded entity. The market and farmers are perfectly capable efficiently running their businesses without any “help” from the US government. About the ONLY thing the US government can and should do is encourage other countries to allow free trade.
The US Farm Bill is just a collection of bribes and extortion to secure the farmers’ votes and to extort campaign contributions from Big Ag corporations. The Food Stamp portion of the Farm Bill is simply to buy votes from poor and to keep them poor and dependent on the government.
Mike Borch says:
May 3, 2014 at 5:51 am
I am a corn and soybean farmer from northern iowa.
Mike,
What are your average yields (bushels/acre) on your farm?
Do you use traditional tillage, low till, or no till methods?
What is your soil type(s)? Sand/silt, black prairie, clay, ???
In your experience, how much have local yields increased in the last 10/20/30 years?
Just curious…. I grew up on a central Wisconsin farm, when traditional plowing, planting, and tillage techniques were just starting to succumb to low till/no till, ‘air’ planters, applications of more herbicides and anhydrous ammonia, etc.
Mac