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Weather extremes becoming the norm

Weather extremes are becoming the norm to many involved in production agriculture.

Jodi DeJong-Hughes is an extension educator with the University of Minnesota.

“I think every year we’re starting to see an extreme sometime during the season. So one of the ways you can kind of combat the variability in the weather is if you build a soil that has better soil health, they become more resilient to those extreme changes.”

She tells Brownfield certain practices can minimize the impact of weather extremes.

“When you have your soil protected from no-till or strip-till or from putting a cover crop on and going overwinter, you’re not getting as much erosion taking your best soil away from the field and putting it in the ditch or your neighbor’s field.”

DeJong-Hughes says after an extremely dry spring for Minnesota in 2023, last spring was excessively wet.