Nothing like complete devastation from an inferno completed by tornadoes.
This is March and the USA is experiencing tornado outbreaks. This is not normal, nor has it been. If the summer of 2017 is as hot as I expect it to be, there may not be crops harvested at all in the USA.
March 7, 2017
By Margaret Stafford
Mark and Jennifer Swartz (click here) moved into their first home in November. On Tuesday, only a section of floor was left of their three-bedroom, two-bath house in Oak Grove, Missouri, after a storm system that dropped more than 30 tornadoes across the Midwest tore it apart.
This is March and the USA is experiencing tornado outbreaks. This is not normal, nor has it been. If the summer of 2017 is as hot as I expect it to be, there may not be crops harvested at all in the USA.
March 7, 2017
By Margaret Stafford
Mark and Jennifer Swartz (click here) moved into their first home in November. On Tuesday, only a section of floor was left of their three-bedroom, two-bath house in Oak Grove, Missouri, after a storm system that dropped more than 30 tornadoes across the Midwest tore it apart.
"It's all we got left, just a slab," Swartz said as he surveyed the damage to his home in the town about 25 miles east of Kansas City, Missouri. "Right now, I'm in total shock. We're blown away, figuratively and literally."
Despite the destruction, Swartz said he and his wife felt blessed by God because they were eating dinner at a restaurant Monday night when the storm hit. Their home had no basement, so they would have had nowhere to hide.
"If we'd been here, we'd be dead," he said, adding, "We'll try to pick up the pieces and move on."
The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, said dozens of tornadoes struck overnight in Missouri, Kansas, Iowa and Illinois. The National Weather Service was assessing the exact number and strength of twisters Tuesday. The same storm system brought huge hailstones and powerful winds as far south as the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas and as far north as Wisconsin....
Small farmers may prove invaluable this year as they can manage to protect crops and their outcomes better than larger operations. Local economies should prepare for the possibilities of seasonal food shortages. The produce farmers may prove to be the best outcome for crops. As a rule the growing season for produce is shorter than grain crops. The plants tend to repeat their success in production of vegetables. The produce crops can also be maintained in greenhouses as well.
Svalbard global seed bank is a vital resource, but, if the weather doesn't permit growth of crops, seeds aren't going to valuable at all.
March 7, 2017
By Thomas Geyer
Twisted steel and rubble are all that is left of one of the silos on Jeff Dietz's farm on Wisconsin Avenue in Davenport. Two other silos along with a large cattle shed and utility shed were damaged beyond repair by Monday night's tornadoes.
Small farmers may prove invaluable this year as they can manage to protect crops and their outcomes better than larger operations. Local economies should prepare for the possibilities of seasonal food shortages. The produce farmers may prove to be the best outcome for crops. As a rule the growing season for produce is shorter than grain crops. The plants tend to repeat their success in production of vegetables. The produce crops can also be maintained in greenhouses as well.
Svalbard global seed bank is a vital resource, but, if the weather doesn't permit growth of crops, seeds aren't going to valuable at all.
By Thomas Geyer
Twisted steel and rubble are all that is left of one of the silos on Jeff Dietz's farm on Wisconsin Avenue in Davenport. Two other silos along with a large cattle shed and utility shed were damaged beyond repair by Monday night's tornadoes.
As storms rolled (click here) through the area and tornadoes danced along the ground Monday night, Jeff Dietz knew something bad was afoot.
“It got real quiet,” said Dietz, 57, who has lived in the same farmhouse at 6535 Wisconsin Avenue in Davenport for 52 years. While he has not farmed the land since his last crop in 2001, he maintained the four silos, a large cattle shed and a large utility shed on the property.
When it got quiet, Dietz said Tuesday as he and friends picked up the debris about his place, “I knew this wasn’t going to be good.”
Dietz said he took a look out a window and saw the sheet metal siding on the cattle barn and shed being blown away.
Another peek out the window and he could tell he’d lost one silo completely while two others lost about 30 feet from their tops. Only the silo with the flat roof survived unscathed.
