U of I Extension workshop focuses on climate trends for Stateline agriculture - WREX.com
U of I Extension workshop focuses on climate trends for Stateline agriculture | News | wrex.com
As plants potentially leave dormancy, climate experts describe the risk of a damaging spring freeze.
ROCKFORD, Ill. — The conversation was on a different set of farming tools at the University of Illinois Extension workshop on Thursday afternoon.
At NIU-Rockford, those in the agricultural community flocked for lessons on climate tools: cultivated information on decades worth of weather patterns.
Speakers focused not only on the value of climate figures but mentioned recent trends affecting the Stateline and Illinois.
Those like Duane Friend, a climate specialist at the U of I Extension– and the workshop's organizer –, touched on the impact of increasing precipitation in recent years.
"When you're looking at precipitation, those heavy rainfall events, those 2, 3, 4 inch rainfall events are becoming more commonplace," says Friend. Likewise, the climate specialist mentioned consequences from the heightened rain: "Potentially humidity... If you're talking about grain storage, humidity becomes a big issue," says Friend.
Agricultural producers utilized the climate tools workshop to learn how recent weather patterns can impact growing seasons.
And as the Rockford region departs a nearly record warm winter, climatologists cautioned workshop attendees on this season's weather trends.
Trent Ford, a climatologist from Illinois State University, emphasized farmers decide how they want to plant but added caution.
"If they're responding and setting those buds, setting those flowers say four or five weeks earlier, it really doesn't have much relationship with when the spring freeze happens," says Ford on plants leaving winter dormancy. "It's still very possible that we could get even a late spring freeze in May. Despite the fact that it's been so mild in the wintertime."
Besides reflections on climate trends, agricultural attendees also enjoyed immersive scenarios and learned digital tools to apply with the upcoming growing season.
Nevertheless, while the warm weather and lessons may motivate farmers to start the season early, Ford brought up last winter as the latest case for holding patience with the climate.
According to Ford, a freeze returned to the Stateline in April – tarnishing the crops certain farmers planted prior. Working with climate tools, those at the U of I Extension believe producers won't repeat the pitfalls of the past.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate science
What began as a theory in the 1890s — that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide could increase global temperatures — had progressed to a scientific fact a century later. Scientists across a range of disciplines are studying the impact of the still-growing concentration of carbon dioxide and other so-called “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere as they call for industrial and governmental policies to slow, then halt, the warming of the planet.