The 2024 planting and growing season hasn’t been one farmers are likely to forget. With each passing week, something new and even more disastrous seemed to be around the corner, ranging from flash flooding and derechos to drought and extreme heat indexes.
In the first half of the year, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) had tracked 15 separate incidents of extreme weather that totaled over $1 billion in damage. Not too long ago in the 2010s, that was more than the average for the entire year.
Though weather has always been a big challenge for the ag industry, the severity and the damage are growing. Farmers are resilient and constantly prove their ability to adapt, so is there anything they can do to agronomically plan for the unpredictable? Two agronomists weigh in with strategies to decrease risk.
Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basket
Eric Wilson, a Wyffels agronomist in southeastern Iowa, says extreme weather is one reason he recommends diversifying your seed selection.
“There’s no such thing as a perfect hybrid,” he says. “The best thing against green snap might not be the best thing in terms of a high-yielding corn hybrid. Oftentimes, you have to give something up to get another thing right.”
Wilson says he would advise choosing at least three to four different hybrids that each play to a different strength.
“We have a product that does really well. It’s high yielding, cranks out bushels, and has a good disease package, but it has a wide green snap window,” he explains. “We need to build a package so that in the event one hybrid has a great year, you’re able to get in on it, but if we get a bunch of wind, it’s not across all of your acres.”
He recommends being aware of your seed’s weaknesses and adapting your management practices accordingly.
“Maybe the one that’s top in yield has an average disease package, but that’s OK because you put it on the field you typically spray anyway,” Wilson says.
At the same time, he says it’s important to not let last year’s weather play too strong of a role in your decision.
“Farmers are notorious for suffering from recency bias,” Wilson says. “If they have a bad windstorm in 2023, that’s all they’re thinking about in 2024 — I’m guilty of it myself. We always try and coach toward selecting a package of products that is going to work well regardless of what environment we get for the year.”
Acknowledge The Frequency, But Reject the Bias
Trey Stephens, Beck’s field agronomist in Nebraska, echoes Wilson’s caution for changing too many decisions based on one year’s conditions.
“You don’t want to let one year alter how you do things normally,” he says. “Just try to stick to what you know as far as your approach to planting, and control what you can.”
At the same time, Stephens says he noticed some weather trends in the area becoming more persistent.
“We’re in Nebraska, so there’s always been hail and wind, but in the past few years there’s been a consistency to it,” he says. “The past few years, we’ve had more severe weather in the later part of June into early July. Then July turns out pretty dry.”
Some of the severe conditions Stephens’ area experienced this growing season include unusually high levels of hail and rain, sometimes totaling 6" to 10" of precipitation overnight. This led to a significant number of fields needing to be replanted, and farmers in the area experimenting with new hybrids.
“Because of flooding, we had a lot of growers planting shorter maturity corn than they ever have — like 102 to 104 days,” he explains. “That was really unique for our area.”
Because of adaptations like this one, farmers will walk away from this year more resilient than before. And as Stephens reflects on what happened over the summer, he emphasizes the importance of planning ahead.
“A lot of people who planted early this year had a more established crop that was more likely to withstand some of the extreme events,” he says. “I advise growers to be prepared when you have the best weather possible and try to plant. Hopefully, you’ll get a crop that’s established enough to survive.”
