Innovative Farmers Look to Climate Forecasts for an Edge

Shortly before 9 a.m, Wendy-Lin Bartels, an anthropologist with the Southeast Climate Consortium, was at the center welcoming farmers, extension agents, and climate and agriculture researchers as they trickled in from Alabama, Georgia, and Florida.

Bartels had invited them to the center to talk about how scientists could better communicate seasonal climate forecasts and how farmers could use them with better results. There were plenty of familiar faces. Some had been coming to these meetings since they began in April 2010.

Among the regulars she wasn't surprised to see coming through the research station doors was Myron Johnson, a row crop farmer from Alabama. Johnson had had great success using last summer's seasonal forecast to help make planting decisions on his 2,000-acre farm.

Kirk Brock walking in caught Bartels a little off-guard, though. Last summer was a different story on Brock's northern Florida farm. While he hadn't "lost the farm," the decisions he had made based on the seasonal forecast hadn't worked out as well as he hoped. Yet there he was, back for more.

Driving through southern Alabama and Florida, you notice that almost every unpaved surface is green. Despite the lushness, farming in the Southeast is a bit of a gamble.

The soil is marginal at best, leached of nutrients and scoured away by eons of rain that often falls in a torrent. Winters may be mild, but summer temperatures, and therefore evaporation rates, are high. From far away, periodic warming and cooling in the tropical Pacific ocean—El Niño and La Niña cycles—can drastically alter seasonal rainfall in the Southeast. La Niña often brings crippling droughts that can swallow a farmer's fortunes.

In short, things can change quickly and often. As Brock explained when I visited his farm, "We don't have 50 years of experience. We have 50 one-year experiences."

It's against this backdrop that farmers in the region have to make a living, and they're looking for an edge anywhere they can find it. For Kirk Brock and Myron Johnson, the search for that edge means thinking beyond the afternoon weather and putting confidence in science.

Blending Tradition and Science

The rain was as loud as pennies falling on the roof of the truck's cab. March is technically still the dry season for southern Alabama, but that doesn't guarantee blue skies day in and out. Bartels had brought me to Myron Johnson's farm to see some of the unique ways he copes with challenges of farming in Alabama. Along with William Birdsong, Johnson's local agriculture extension agent, we had been watching Johnson work in his field until the fat drops of rain sent us racing for cover.

Myron Johnson’s tractor runs on GPS-guided auto-pilot, allowing him to keep an eye on what’s going on in the field behind him. NOAA photo by Brian Kahn.

Right before the downpour, Johnson, owner of Double J Farms, had been showing off the new machine he created to flatten the cereal rye he'd been growing since December. The machine behind the tractor makes it easier than ever for him to roll the grass into submission, thousands of stalks pointing accusingly at the device that just pancaked them.

After 10 minutes, the storm broke off into a drizzle. Johnson dashed from the cab of his tractor to his truck, and we headed back to the nerve center of his farm to talk about what we had just witnessed.

Johnson is a ball of energy and quick to crack a joke. What's more, he laughs at these jokes like someone else told them, to the point where you can't help but join in with him.

Running time 2:59

Alabama farmer Myron Johnson talks about how adding seasonal climate outlooks to his decisions about when to plant and harvest his cover crops helped produce a bumper cotton crop during the 2010 growing season.

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