Extreme weather has ravaged many US farms this year. Here’s how farmers are adapting

From Harvest Public Media:

It’s been a tough spring for Harvest Thyme Farm.

In March, the flower and vegetable farm in Cheboygan, Michigan, was buried by an historic blizzard and ice storm. April brought floodwaters that filled their backyard and inundated their greenhouse.

“It’s just one thing after the other,” said the farm’s owner, Greta Jankoviak.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer declared a state of emergency for 33 counties on April 12, after widespread flooding washed away bridges, roads, and submerged homes. Eight tornadoes also tore through the state.

That land won’t recover for some time, Burgess said, and he’s moving some of his cattle to other properties to avoid further damaging his fire-ravaged pastures.

“When that grass does green up, those cows just really go after it and they’ll just trample it and do more damage than the fire did,” he said.

Wildfires burned more than one million acres in Nebraska alone this spring. In March, the Morrill fire became the largest blaze ever recorded in Nebraska state history.

Exceptionally dry conditions fueled additional fires, with another one million acres affected across seven other states, including Texas, Nevada and New Mexico. Rippey said that’s twice the average area projected to burn in the U.S. in an entire year.

Oklahoma State Climatologist Gary McManus said La Niña — a climate pattern that cools oceanic waters on the west coast of South America — has been partially to blame for warmer and drier than normal winters for the U.S. in recent years.

McManus said Oklahoma experienced its warmest winter on record, since recordkeeping first began in 1895. Eight other states also saw record-breaking winter temperatures this year.

These conditions can set the stage for the types of extreme wildfires that much of the Great Plains experienced this year.

“When we get our sort of normal fire weather conditions with these dry, dry days, low humidity, lots of wind,” McManus said. “There’s just a lot of fuel out there waiting for a spark.”

Drier and hotter in Texas

According to the National Integrated Drought Information System, more than 60% of the lower 48 states are currently experiencing drought.

Some states, like Texas, are seeing extreme or exceptional drought conditions.

In Fredericksburg, Texas, 80 miles west of Austin, the Eckhardt family has been growing peaches since the 1930s. Over time, the third generation family business has had to adapt to the drier and warmer-than-normal conditions.

Owner Diane Eckhardt said the orchard traditionally avoided using irrigation because of the expense, but now she says they have no choice. They were forced to add a drip irrigation system to get them through when the stretches between rainfall grew too long.

“It certainly does not replace rainfall, but it certainly helps,” Eckhardt said. “That’s one of the biggest significant changes I’ve seen in my lifetime.”

Warmer temperatures in recent years have not allowed peaches to get enough chill hours, which she said can make crop yields less bountiful. And worse, the extreme temperatures can put stress on trees.

“We worry, of course, about our crop, but the most important thing is we worry about our trees,” Eckhardt said.

Growing peaches in Texas is getting harder to do. But the Eckhardt family is figuring it out as they go.

“Even with the challenges that we may face with our changing weather, it is still a wonderful life and we love it,” Eckhardt said. “We definitely, there are days that we want to quit, but we learn how to adapt.”

Lingering ice storm damage

In March of last year, parts of northern Michigan experienced a record-breaking ice storm that left a thick icy glaze on trees, homes and power lines, leaving more than 100,000 residents without power, some for weeks.

At Heart’s Pasture Farm in Alanson, Michigan, first-generation farmers Amanda and Todd Wolter grow specialty produce and raise heritage livestock, including dwarf goats. Last spring’s ice storm sent tree limbs crashing down on their 15-acre wooded farm, turning it into a disaster zone.

“It was life or death,” Amanda Wolter said as she recalled taking turns running outside to fuel the generator while dodging falling debris.

The Wolters’ planting season was cut short, because of all the fallen trees and broken limbs covering their land.

“Every day of cleanup is just ticking in your head,” Wolter said. “That’s one more day that we’re not planting potatoes.”

One year later, some of that debris has been cleared, but most of Heart’s Pasture Farm is still covered in tangled tree limbs.

“I didn’t like looking into the woods all summer last year, because all I saw was work to be done,” she said.

Heart’s Pasture Farm received a grant from a local nonprofit that allowed the Wolters to hire short-term help to take down the most dangerous trees. But Wolter says she and her husband are cleaning up the rest of debris by hand.

“It will take a lifetime to clean everything up,” she said.

This story was produced in partnership with Harvest Public Media, a collaboration of public media newsrooms in the Midwest and Great Plains, including Texas. It reports on food systems, agriculture and rural issues.