That climate change is sneaky, it hides the ‘damage’ via ‘weather variations resulting from climate change’ in record high soybean yields, as seen in this graph I located from Kansas State University:
Color me unimpressed with this press release, which boils down to nothing more than a statement of “we could have had a better year if the weather was better”.
Climate change costing soybean farmers
MADISON – Even during a good year, soybean farmers nationwide are, in essence, taking a loss. That’s because changes in weather patterns have been eating into their profits and taking quite a bite: $11 billion over the past 20 years.
This massive loss has been hidden, in effect, by the impressive annual growth seen in soybean yields thanks to other factors. But that growth could have been 30 percent higher if weather variations resulting from climate change had not occurred, according to a study by University of Wisconsin-Madison agronomists published last month in Nature Plants.
“We are still making yield gains because of breeding and other strategies, but those numbers aren’t as big as they could be,” says lead author Shawn Conley, a UW-Madison agronomy professor and UW-Extension soybean and wheat specialist.
Averaging the data across the United States, researchers found that soybean yields fell by around 2.4 percent for every one-degree rise in temperature. In Wisconsin and most other northern states, including South Dakota and Minnesota, the changes in climate factors actually led to higher soybean yields. Wisconsin, for instance, saw an increase of 17.5 kilograms per hectare per year over the 20 years studied. However, most soybean-growing states farther south, including Ohio, Arkansas and Kentucky, experienced decreases in yields.
These divergent responses have to do with historical norms. In colder northern states, soybeans seem to be enjoying the new warmer weather, while in states farther south – where conditions had previously been fairly ideal – the additional heat is causing stress.
Conley’s team isolated the impacts of changing temperature and precipitation on soybean yields in a much more precise way than previously done. While earlier approaches relied on estimates, UW-Madison researchers gathered their own data field trials, giving them access to more reliable and consistent information about the genetics of the soybeans being grown, the management practices being used and the weather the fields saw throughout the growing season. Spyridon Mourtzinis, a post-doctoral fellow in Conley’s lab, then removed the effects of the management strategies and genetic improvements so the team could focus their analysis on the impacts of weather variability.
Because the states with the biggest yield losses are also the nation’s biggest soybean producers, the national impact comes out to a 30 percent yield loss overall.
Conley says that the next step is to help growers minimize this loss by starting or expanding practices such as earlier planting, no-till practices and growing later maturing soybeans. Researchers can help by producing region-specific suggestions that account for weather patterns at different times of the growing season.
Only then, says Conley, can the full potential of soybean yields be realized.
###
It is an excellent premise.
The only problem with it is that there are no “weather variations resulting from climate change”.
Also the CO2 plant-food thingie that Kirkc pointed out. One’d have to factor in that too, wouldn’t one?
If only we’ve had perfect weather like in the past. We can’t we just stop this madness aim for perfection in our weather?
Could the UW do a study to see if the decrease in yield due to temperature was more or less than the increase in yield do to the 100 PPM increase in CO2 over the past 60 years?
Never collect data that could contradict your preconceived outcome
Here’s the Pine Bluff, Arkansas WX history for July, 2014 (basically mid-season for beans and on the West edge of their soybean area)
WEATHER OBSERVED NORMAL DEPART LAST YEAR`S
VALUE DATE(S) VALUE FROM VALUE DATE(S)
NORMAL
……………………………………………………….
TEMPERATURE (F)
AVG. MAXIMUM 85.6 92.2 -6.6 90.6
AVG. MINIMUM 67.3 71.9 -4.6 69.1
MEAN 76.4 82.0 -5.6 79.9
DAYS MAX >= 90 9 21.6 -12.6 19
DAYS MAX <= 32 0 0.0 0.0 0
DAYS MIN <= 32 0 0.0 0.0 0
DAYS MIN <= 0 0 0.0 0.0 0
PRECIPITATION (INCHES)
RECORD
MAXIMUM 14.16 1936
MINIMUM 0.00 1886
TOTALS 2.03 3.93 -1.90 1.25
JULY WILL LONG BE REMEMBERED AS ONE OF THE COLDEST ON RECORD. THERE
WERE SEVERAL PERIODS DURING THE MONTH WITH TEMPERATURES FALLING INTO
THE 60S…AND HIGHS ONLY IN THE 70S. FOR THE SECOND JULY IN A
ROW…THERE WERE NO TEMPERATURES AT OR ABOVE 100 DEGREES. FOR THE
FIRST TIME SINCE 2007…THERE WERE NO TEMPERATURES ABOVE 96 DEGREES.
EVEN THOUGH RAINFALL WAS BELOW AVERAGE…IT WAS STILL WETTER THAN
LAST JULY.
***********************************************************************
max temps averaged 6.6° F BELOW NORMAL
min temps averaged 4.6° F BELOW NORMAL
Precip was 1.9" BELOW NORMAL (roughly half of normal)
So, Arkansas had cool and dry — two years running. But the reduced yields were due to — HEAT?????
BTW, here’s what they say about temps:
———————————————————
.MONTHLY TEMPERATURES…
THE AVERAGE HIGH TEMPERATURE WAS THE COLDEST SINCE 1940…AND THE
COLDEST ON RECORD.
THE AVERAGE LOW TEMPERATURE WAS THE COLDEST SINCE 1918…AND THE 3RD
COLDEST ON RECORD
THE AVERAGE MONTHLY TEMPERATURE WAS THE COLDEST SINCE 1906…AND THE
COLDEST ON RECORD.
——————————————————–
Arkansas is really suffering from AGW. (source is NOAA – http://www.weather.gov/climate/ )
Arkansas did not have reduced yields, according to any data I’ve found. 2013 was a record for yield and for total production in each of the three states named as “losses” for soybeans (Ohio, Arkansas, Kentucky).
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
according to any data I’ve found.
=============
these were model losses. projections of what could have been if only things had been perfect, and the farmers had done exactly as told. actual losses don’t count cause what do farmers know about crops or weather? it isn’t like they spend time studying them like the researchers do.
Correct. A bad choice of words on my part. Reduced as in reduced below the “hypothetical ultimate” yield the UWM paper claims could be achieved if it was not for warm temps — except the temps were not warm, as last July was “ONE OF THE COLDEST ON RECORD” according to NOAA.
This ‘study’ ended before 2013 so the data showing the strong cooling going on now isn’t in the study.
Besides that, the ‘researchers’ are paid to find more reasons for forcing us to live in Tiny Houses and ride bikes and eat only soy beans has to be supported with studies showing that we are roasting to death even though it is very significantly colder than the 1930s and soon will be as cold as when Washington crossed the Delaware River at Christmas.
You may find this interesting. Arkansas and Ohio were forecast to have record bean crops in 2014:
http://www.nass.usda.gov/Newsroom/2014/08_12_2014.asp
Despite deforestation, the world is getting greener – scientists
BANGKOK – The world’s vegetation has expanded, adding nearly 4 billion tonnes of carbon to plants above ground in the decade since 2003, thanks to tree-planting in China, forest regrowth in former Soviet states and more lush savannas due to higher rainfall.
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/despite-deforestation-world-getting-greener-scientists-150214323.html
…. the impressive annual growth seen in soybean yields thanks to other factors. But that growth could have been 30 percent higher if weather variations resulting from climate change had not occurred ….
Based on models, which are assumed to be more a reflection of reality than …. reality.
If God or Allah were truly pleased with us, soybean yields would be up 83% from what they are, according to my religious modelling. Since they are just a lot better than they used to be, I have proof that we have displeased our deity.
What bizarre, circular reasoning is publishable these days!
Wake me up when the US government stops subsidizing soybeans (and corn, and wheat, and …).
Amen.
Yields and production are only numbers, feelings are what counts.
e.g. climate scientists felt the 1930s should have been cooler and so it came to be.
+1
I guarantee you that if we were subsidizing this crop in the name of Global Climate [whatever we’re calling it today], making “soybean ethanol” and government was mandating that we cram it into our cars and trucks to ruin the engines these bumper crops would be touted as a huge success story on every Progressive news program, Warmist web site and newspaper in the USSA.
Are those researchers blind? Is really not clear?
There’s nothing so rare as an average year.
Just when you think dumb can’t get any dumber, along comes nonsense like this, taking dumb to a new level.
every thing I have read, seen and even tried (on small scale 2 acre cornfields) has shown me no-till in a crop rotation scenario (like corn-soy) leads to seed rot unless you let the field sit unused a season.
friggin hippies.
but but but.. these all natural methods must be best because they are er, natural. like living in a solar heated cave, way better than any house.
lol yeah…the advocates say the no till and drill planters (all this stuff able to get grants/subsidies too) work better than till and seed (present use) and will save a lot of money yet I do not see a lot of farmers themselves advocating for it.
rather I have heard, again in a rotation type scenario, there always were issues.
now in non crop rotation field I do not know, I suspect it would work well actually even w/o drill planters. thats just a guess though.
and I note the push to breeding n no till in it
ie
the big agri are ramping up yet more gmocrapcrops and no till is THE daftest idea as above roots either rot or dry out n compact no oxygen in soil no bringing up of subsoil minerals and incorporation of litter
sells shitloads of chemicals though!
yeah they do advocate using lot more weed killers for the fast growing weeds.
yet producing the weed killer takes lot of…OIL !!!
I would be interested in seeing the stats before 1973 Global temperatures increased from 1910 to 1940, then declined to around 1976. If the US corn & soy regions did the same, the stats could be inmformative.
Corn back to 1900 shows essentially a flat trend line until the mid 1930s, then switching to a steady rise that continues through the current day. But soybeans (which I could only find back to 1923) is essentially on the current rising trend line from the beginning of the data.
This article happens to have both graphs. The topic is Brazil, but the US data is shown for comparison:
http://www.pecad.fas.usda.gov/highlights/2008/04/brazil/
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
Thanks, Keith. I was hoping for the long term data to show a correlation with temperature, so that we could all see what it was and put this issue to rest. But the yield just keeps rising through hot and cold, El Nino, La Nina, PDO, AMO – you name it, the yield doesn’t care.
And then I realised that of course this does put the issue to rest : any reaction that soy beans have to temperature is irrelevant compared with all the other factors affecting yield. So the changes in temperature, whether we’re talking about 1970-2000, or 1940-1970, or 1910-1940, or any other period, just don’t matter – well not in comparison to farming practices, strain/variety development, etc. If the paper was correct, then we would see faster yield increase from 1940-1970, and slower yield increase from 1910-1940, but we don’t. So any claim, such as in the paper we’re discussing in this thread, that rising temperatures have caused yields to fall a massive 30% below what they would have been had the weather been cooler, are quite simply poppycock.
Thinking about it just a little bit more : given that there is data going that far back, why did the paper use such a small subset? Was it because, with the full set of data, Blind Freddie could see they were being ridiculous?
From Keith’s link:
http://www.pecad.fas.usda.gov/highlights/2008/04/brazil/images/usbrazilsoybeanyields.gif
Mike A.- We don’t have enough information to calculate where the 30% came from. My understanding of the explanation above, is that the “loss” they have calculated is the change in yields after removing all other types of changes. ( Changes in Soybean genetics and management practices).So they are calculating this on a field by field basis? And if so, my big question is what temperature data did they use? Temperature at each field, or a regional average, or a global average ? Does anyone who has access to the study no how granular the study was for temperature, and was the delta measured year to year, or over a longer period of time? Unless they were looking at temperature change in the field they were measure management practice changes, how can one infer an average affect of temperature?
I forecast soybean yields for a living. What this study states is the complete opposite of reality. The past 25 years have featured the best growing conditions/climate in the Midwest since humans began recording weather in this area.
There has been only 1 severe, widespread drought during that time period(after going 24 straight years without one, a new record 1988-2013).
The great Mississippi River flooding of 1993 was the other crop damaging weather event.
In 2003, it was hot/dry in August but the cool weather before that was favorable for aphids. Many producers underestimated the aphid population that exploded and sucked the yields way down.
Had nothing to do with climate change. Producers that sprayed aggressively as we recommended had much higher yields, those that didn’t, learned a lesson.
Corn yields in 2003 were not down that much.
At what point are these people not connected to reality with bogus studies like this going to be held accountable?
‘The great Mississippi River flooding of 1993 was the other crop damaging weather event.’
I remember that. People were going around in the office explaining that now was the time to put one’s money ‘big time’ into corn futures since the flooding had wiped out the corn crop. It sounded oh so logical and assured. Corn prices ended up dropping since the rainfall that caused the flooding happened to guarantee bumper yields elsewhere.
‘At what point are these people not connected to reality with bogus studies like this going to be held accountable?’
Never. That’s the beauty of it. It just has to be perceived to succeed. It doesn’t really have to. Just jiggle the numbers. Farmers own a lot of land and the desire to get one’s hands on it must be satiated.
You remember that time?
You are a PRECIOUS RESOURCE: I have found all my own longish life that knowing people who are 100 years old can be a great learning source and my godmother died at 105 when I was a 14 year old and she was my great teacher of what happened in the past.
A lot of the ridiculous climate information is pouring out of universities thanks to an army of very foolish young people who grew up during the recent 30 year warm cycle and they don’t listen to us oldsters who grew up at the middle of the 1940-1960 warm cycle and then had to live through the bitter cold cycle of the 1970’s.
“At what point are these people not connected to reality with bogus studies like this going to be held accountable?”
That’s the wonderful thing about Ivory Tower academia. It is NOT connected to reality. These folks are only accountable to other academics, who are in turn accountable only to other academics. Fearmongering, grant grubbing, and moral posturing rule the day.
It is turtles, all the way down.
We may have to remind readers of Yertle the Turtle’s tower plans! 🙂
after going 24 straight years without one, a new record 1988-2013).
That should be 1988-2012
Once again, the University of Wisconsin-Madison demonstrates why it manages to remain perennially in the top ten of party schools.
I wonder how much time Shawn Conley has spent in the seat of a farm tractor?
I’d be honestly surprised if he could recognize a tractor if one was parked on his foot.
Jeeziz. Soybeans are grown from Minnesota to southern Mississippi. So one degree makes a difference? Please!
Soybeans are not fit to eat until you mush them and mix them with dry-wall dust, then marinate them in any combination of oil, garlic and X.
Then, they’re delicious.
Maybe that’s why steak is not as tasty as ginger tofu, even though the soy content of cows can be quite high; no gypsum and no garlic.
Honestly, it’s like talking to the wall, here!
Soybeans taste a lot better if you run them through a cow first…… then eat the cow.
or deer.
or moose.
even pigs of course. bacon 🙂
These people have absolutely no shame.
It’s like opposite bizarro world. We have record yields but yet we talk about how yields are down due to climate change.
We have record yields but yet we try to prove a negative and compare the record yields to model predictions and then Claim yields are down.
It’s like reality does not matter.
Shawn Conley is ‘farming’ the AGW cash cow. Unfortunately, he is teaching grad and undergraduate students to act with similar avarice and ‘selective science vision’ as he.
His statements referring to the progression of record soybean yields of the last 3 decades as being 30% ‘losses’ is Orwellian double speak of the highest order… as well as a ‘projection’ of unadulterated bullshit proportions.
It reminds me of the grasping socialists budgeting for 10% increases of tax revenues every year going forward… and, when the actual tax revenues only go up 4% one year, they call it a 6% cut to their budgets!
My statistics professor at the University of Wisconsin – Madison called it “Lying With Statistics” back in 1980. It still is today. Like most universities, there are both rock solid academicians there as well as rent seeking shills.
On a more positive note: How ’bout those Badger Basketball Boyz??!!!
They made it to The Final Four for the second year in a row, from the starting field of the best 64 college basketball teams in the USA! The Badgers play the University of Kentucky Wildcats next Saturday. The Michigan State Spartans will play the Duke University Blue Devils on Saturday as well. The winners of those 2 match ups play for the national title on Sunday.
Go BADGERS!!!!!
One subtlety: He isn’t using “three decades.” For Conley et al., for the purposes of this study history starts in 1994. The period studied is 1994-2013 (twenty years), though there is a reference to 1993 as well.
At least he goes one year past the drought. His team was apparently able to exactly isolate the effects of genetics, as well as determining the impact of temperature and precipitation changes (independently) by month and by state, detrending all of the data for each of these. I’d wager that their formulae for these isolations would raise eyebrows among those actually familiar with the practices involved; the man’s own statements in the interview suggest that he is not.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
Yes – typo/tapped 3 instead of 2…..
As for their ability to “exactly isolate the effects of genetics, “etc……. I grew up on a farm and recognize BS when I encounter it.
Mac
Increases in yields are called losses. Where did they learn their accounting the Federal government?
Used soybean oil from frying is the major ingredient of biodiesel in the US and most other countries producing significant amounts of biodiesel. So this may cause an internal contradiction within climate change alarmists. That is bound to be ‘a good thing’ IMHO. Now I wonder what other internationally increasing crop yields are likely to fit the same category – rape (for biodiesel), palm oil (for biodiesel), corn (for bioethanol), sugar beet (for bioethanol)?