Record cold is lingering in South America, threatening the key corn crops of Brazil and Argentina.
On Thursday, May 26 it was a historically frigid day across parts of Central-Southern Argentina.
The weather station at Puerto Madryn logged an astonishing -8.6C (16.5F) — a new record low for the month of May in books dating back to 1961, busting the old record of -6.8C (19.8F) set in 1993; also Viedma, with its reading -5.0C (23F), also felled a record.
South America’s polar chill will expand northwards over the next few days, soon reaching the tropics.
COLD TURKEY
While Western Turkey is -finally- warming up, the country’s eastern highlands are still holding exceptionally cold.
On Wednesday, May 25, the mercury sank to -8.5C (16.7F) across Turkey’s higher elevations, and to a record -4.4C (24.1F) in the village of Cullu. Record cold was noted a day later, too — Thursday saw a low of -4.3C (24.3F) at Damal.
Turkey is coming off the back of a historically cold and snowy winter.
For prolonged spells, record lows and unprecedented snows shut down key Turkish cities, including Istanbul; and also resulted in the country’s largest power outage ever as heating demand soared.
The country then went on to suffer its second-coldest March on record:
LATE START CROPS
Situated in the Creston Valley, Sutcliffe Farms is the largest producer of asparagus in B.C., with 100 acres.
Started in 1948 with just 5 acres, the farm has a long history of producing prize winning asparagus.
Typically, picking season begins around the first of May and continues for six weeks. However, the persistently frigid temperatures this spring have caused a later start date than usual.
Fortunately, the crop is looking good; however, regional buyers are growing impatient: “We’ve been getting 30 to 40 calls a day asking if we have asparagus,” said Doug Sutcliffe. “People have even driven over from Castlegar or Cranbrook to check if we’re open.”
This year’s cold spring has been playing havoc with crops across Canada, and also with those south of the border, too.
Spring planting in the United States is still well-behind schedule, and with June now just around the corner the optimal planting window has closed — any crops going in the ground now will see their yield suffer greatly as they won’t have the time to mature before the first fall frost.
To achieve maximum yield in the Corn Belt states, planting needs to take place from mid-April to mid-May. The window opens about two weeks earlier in the southern section of the Corn Belt and about two weeks later in the north; then closes roughly two weeks earlier in the north than in the south.
Historically, this time frame provides a balance between adequate soil temperatures in the spring and the first killing frost in the fall. However, while it is important to plant corn within the appropriate window for the specific geography, planting date is not the only driver of yield potential. Other factors include the management of weeds, diseases, and pests, rainfall in July and August, and temperatures during pollination.
Along with lower planting figures, this spring’s corn crop will almost certainly be impacted by the ongoing global shortage of ‘inputs’. Without fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides the yield coming out of field is drastically reduced.
This is where an unchecked ‘Big Ag’ monopoly gets you: crops that are utterly dependent on a chemical application to grow.
ADDITIONAL COLD WAVES HEADED FOR THE UNITED STATES
Any American growers hoping to catch a break as we enter June are to be sorely disappointed.
According to the latest GFS run (shown below), additional rounds of polar cold are forecast to descend into the CONUS this weekend, and then well into June, cold that will further stunt the progress of the nation’s grains, vegetables and fruits alike in a year where global supply shocks are already rattling the markets and resulting in an uptick in world hunger.
GFS 2m Temperature Anomalies (C) May 31 to June 9 [tropicaltidbits.com].
June snow is also on the cards, particularly for the higher elevations of SW Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming and Colorado:
GFS 2m Temperature Anomalies (C) May 31 to June 9 [tropicaltidbits.com].
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