henarar:

Oh well I put my ferti on today now all we need is a bit of rain to wash it in

This mornings forecast was for 5mm tonight, so I spun a few tons of urea on this afternoon. Check again this evening, and no rain forecast until Sunday now!

wheat market is on fire, £210 spot and £184 nov

                I told 'em, glasshouse

Merv's come up with another £50Bn, this morning.

And a mere £5Bn's the difference between £180 and £600 on the UK Wheat crop.

And nothing much else for all those QE-fuelled speculators to go for, at present.

 I just read that 56% of the continental US is in a drought, very importantly that includes much of the corn and soybean growing areas, along with much of the best grazing land for beef.  This is early in the summer, generally hot weather just now kicks in.  If this is the wet part of the summer, I'm not sure I want to stick around to see the dry part.

kf, I take it from your posts, and a little research, that Kansas actually has some rain during the summer. I know it will not rain here again before at least the end of September, maybe the end of October, and the river has fallen to the level where I cannot pump irrigation water. The maize (corn) has not tasselled yet, and the young olive trees could certainly do with a drink. That is life though, and it just has to be accepted. As I have posted before, I have seen worse dry times in Australia, and at least I know it will cool off and some rain will fall in a few months.

 Typically June is one of our wettest months.  It is not unusual at all to see 6 inches or more of rain in June.  May is also usually wet.  It got dry and hot much earlier than "normal".  As a rule, we can expect some hot dry weather every July and August, but our May and June rains charge our subsoil moisture to help us get through, this year that has not been the case.  The most troubling aspect of all of this to me is we can easily see things get drier and hotter over the next 2 months, we can have 100F clear into September. 

There was a grass fire yesterday in the south end of our county, 30 miles from my farm, that took 6 of our 13 fire divisions to bring under control.  Without knowing for sure what all was used, I would say probably 12-15 fire trucks.  

Owd Fred :

No chance of us making zider thiz year, for the first time I can remember, we have no apples on the old orchard trees, (6 trees) not a single apple. It may have been the very dry winter we have had, and I do not recall any frost at blossom time

 

Fred, I found this remark very interesting. The dry winter we had (and I mean dry, an inch from mid-November to the end of April) is also being blamed for the lack of olive blossom. Do you think it is a real probability that the dry weather causes a lack of blossom, or do you think it might be something else?

OM, sounds like a reaction to stress. I am trying to explain to people here that focusing on growing cereals in locations where they can get highly stressed by the climate is a bad idea.

old mcdonald:

Do you think it is a real probability that the dry weather causes a lack of blossom, or do you think it might be something else?

We had no more rain than you over last winter, the ditches and springs never produced and "ground water" and were dry all through till March, and I can not remember that ever in my life time. We had no snow worth a dam, and next to no frost, I suppose it would be another form of stress, or another form of lack of vernalization, some thing need that that bit of very cold through the dormant period in order to complete their cycle of life.

About an inch and a half in the calfs bucket this morning

My rain gauge has given up it said its not paid enough for this heavy work and if I dont give it overtime its going down with old Mac to get filled with dust

                growing cereals in locations where they can get highly stressed by the climate is a bad idea.

Couldn't agree more, Stuart Meikle.

Reading above, world-wide, only the favoured East Anglia would seem to qualify as suitable for cereals in a year like this.

 I think the better part of the world can get climate stress, if we take all those areas out of production food will be short indeed.

Local news page says we need 8-10 inches of rain to break the drought.  I would agree with that assessment.

We apparently suffered loss of life in our community due to the drought.  A very "eccentric" old gentleman was found dead yesterday.  He had no air conditioning, although he certainly had the means to have it.   Witnesses had seen him plowing on an old tractor with no cab on the 4th, with no shirt on and said he was red as a lobster.  He should have known better.

Should top at 107 today, then we get a big cool off for next week, highs in the upper 80s and lower 90s.

instead of wasting money on concrete and glass carbuncles, the western world could have upgraded all the irrigation and drainage infrastructure currently lying to waste, and the worlds food supply would be a whole lot more secure than it is.

Very good point glasshouse they seem to make much of these things and the millions they cost but you cant eat them

 The only time we ever get a good price is when food is in short supply.  Maybe what the industrialized world really needs a a couple of years of WW2 style food rationing to make them appreciate the need for steady profitable food production.

henarar, Here's one for you, and it is not a wind-up. When it turned hotter a couple of weeks back we noticed a few frogs close to the house, and some on the shady-side window ledges. We then had the odd one on the doorsteps and climbing the door frames. One attempted to get in the house when I shifted it off the steps. The building that contains the living accommodation is an enormous split-level structure, cellar,  olive bins, cheese room, slaughterhouse on the ground floor at the back with the living accomoodation above that floor and at ground level at the front, so we are a fair bit above the river. 

 In the last week we have had a couple in the house, and last night one decided to have a too close inspection of the electronic fly zapper. Now they used to say in Australia to expect floods when the turtles were making for higher ground, but frogs taking refuge about 40 feet above the river just seems a wee bit extreme. Or are we going to get some of your weather?

 We managed a quarter inch last night, woefully inadequate, but welcome.  The storms last night moved southwest, very unusual.  It is now thundering again, radar shows a little "popcorn" thunderstorm to our northeast, usually that would mean nothing, but these too are moving southwest. 

If anyone wants to see some family friendly made for TV movies that are about life in my part of the world in the early 1900s, rent the "Sarah Plain and Tall" trilogy with Christopher Walken and Glenn Close.  They were filmed not far from where I live.  The middle one, Skylark, is built around a drought in 1912.  They happened to be on Hallmark last night.  It was a painfully familiar story.

Seems funny there is lack off rain in the westurn Isles

Its back and this time it means business

About two inches last night

we have had another 3 inches of drought last night!

Having had time to talk it through with the trade, I now consider that May, rather than February, 2013, will see the next inevitable UK wheat price breakout.

£600/tonne's really no joke, folks.