The drought monitor report as of Tuesday, April 18, indicates continued expansion of exceptional drought further east and along the southern counties, even with the scattered rains. The six to 10-day outlook (April 25 to 29) indicates a 40 to 50% chance of leaning to below normal temperatures and a 33 to 40% chance of leaning near normal precipitation.
The eight to 14-day outlook (April 27 to May 3) indicates a 40 to 50% chance of leaning to above normal temperatures and near normal precipitation. Near normal isn’t much but a great deal more than we’ve had lately.
Before today’s topic, the outlook for April through June indicates at least a 40% to 50% chance of below normal temperatures and near normal for precipitation. Normal precipitation would be approximately seven inches for May through June.
Over the last several weeks, the amount of soil blowing around has been noticeable. With the area in essentially a two-year drought, it’s hardly a surprise. The challenge is what to do about it. There major truth in wind erosion, wet soil doesn’t blow.
Without irrigation, you can’t make it rain. What has compounded the problem is the lack of ground cover even without tillage. Often, producers will take out a tillage implement like a chisel plow if possible to do two things, roughen the soil and bring up subsoil moisture. We know there isn’t much if any moisture. And breaking up the surface, making it rough, breaks up the wind and slows down erosion.
This again works better with some soil moisture and well-aggregated soil. It doesn’t work as well with dry soils, soils lacking decent structure, and especially on dry, sandy soils. Before we move on to preventing wind erosion in the future, be aware of the double-edged erosion sword we deal with out here. Producers must deal with both wind and water erosion. Water erosion can be severe here as it doesn’t take much slope for water to flow, and many fields lack adequate ground cover. Now, moving forward what can we do?
• Keep the ground covered with a good amount of crop residue (i.e. minimize or eliminate tillage) or where possible plant, grow, then kill and leave in place some type of cover crop.
• Leave as much standing crop stubble as possible and as tall as practical as it serves as a mini-windbreak.
• Where possible and practical plant in an east-west direction, perpendicular to prevailing winds. It really can help.
• Where practical and possible (and this is more common on the sandy soils in our region), break up fields into smaller fields with practical crop rotations. For example, take a quarter section and split it up between corn, wheat and grain sorghum, and if you can, add soybeans.
• Finally, while falling out of favor with many, a good, well-maintained shelterbelt is extremely effective in controlling wind erosion, especially on the sandier soils in the area.
Dr. Victor L. Martin is the agriculture instructor/coordinator for Barton Community College. He can be reached at 620-792-9207, ext. 207, or martinv@bartonccc.edu.
