Arctic Cold Across the Country

This week much of the country has been experiencing record-breaking cold temperatures. USDA Meteorologist Brad Rippey begins with how the winter wheat has fared across the country in this cold snap.

Rippey: "For the most part winter wheat was well protected from the bitter cold by fresh snow cover."

However, Rippey says there were some gaps in the snow cover -- much of Nebraska, Southcentral and Southwestern South Dakota and parts of Northcentral Kansas. So

Rippey: "There may be some pockets of winter kill from this cold snap but it really was just one bitterly cold day so that is working to the crop's advantage."

Because rarely does one freeze event kill a winter wheat crop. Rippey reminds us of the crop's condition heading into the winter season.

Rippey: "Remember this crop was pretty good shape heading into the winter. Well over half of the crop in the affected area was rated good to excellent which means that the crop was not seriously drought-stressed. So I think that producers are optimistic that this may be just a one hit and they won't lose much of the crop."

Rippey says there was concern about potential cold damage to vegetable and citrus crops across the South. However, he shares

Rippey: "The deep South winter crop production areas have largely escaped with only minor concerns. Curtesy of cloud cover and even some rain and some light mixed precipitation, deep south Texas remained above freezing. For the most part, the same was true of Florida's peninsula."

Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Lacy Gray.

Are a third of the world's agricultural lands maxed out?  According to a recent study by University of Nebraska researchers thirty percent of the major global cereal crops - including wheat, corn and rice, may have reached their maximum possible yields in farmers' fields.  This sounds the alarm on the already rising concerns about food production needs of a growing world population. The study's researchers report that the production of cereal crops has either decreased or plateaued recently, pointing out that projections normally used to ensure food security amid a growing population are based on past continual increases in yield - suggesting that a constant increase in cereal crop yields is highly unlikely.  Researchers also pointed out that to sustain further yield gain "would require fine tuning of many different factors in the production of crops".  So, what does that mean?  UNL professor of agronomy, Ken Cassman, says that research priorities need to get back on track, and focus on accelerating the rate of gain in yield by using environmentally sensitive methods of production - a challenge he says we haven't been up to so far. 

Thanks Lacy. That's today's Northwest Report.