scholarly journals Can conservation trump impacts of climate change on soil erosion? An assessment from winter wheat cropland in the Southern Great Plains of the United States

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 32-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jurgen D. Garbrecht ◽  
Mark A. Nearing ◽  
Jean L. Steiner ◽  
Xunchang J. Zhang ◽  
Mary H. Nichols
Plant Disease ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 99 (9) ◽  
pp. 1261-1267 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. Kolmer ◽  
M. E. Hughes

Collections of Puccinia triticina were obtained from rust-infected leaves provided by cooperators throughout the United States and from wheat fields and breeding plots by USDA-ARS personnel and cooperators in the Great Plains, Ohio River Valley, and southeastern states in order to determine the virulence of the wheat leaf rust population in 2013. Single uredinial isolates (490 total) were derived from the collections and tested for virulence phenotype on 20 lines of Thatcher wheat that are near-isogenic for leaf rust resistance genes. In 2013, 79 virulence phenotypes were described in the United States. Virulence phenotypes MBTNB, TNBGJ, and MCTNB were the three most common phenotypes. Phenotypes MBTNB and MCTNB are both virulent to Lr11, and MCTNB is virulent to Lr26. MBTNB and MCTNB were most common in the soft red winter wheat region of the southeastern states and Ohio Valley. Phenotype TNBGJ is virulent to Lr39/41 and was widely distributed throughout the hard red winter wheat region of the Great Plains. Isolates with virulence to Lr11, Lr18, and Lr26 were common in the southeastern states and Ohio Valley region. Isolates with virulence to Lr21, Lr24, and Lr39/41 were frequent in the hard red wheat region of the southern and northern Great Plains.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yabin Da ◽  
Yangyang Xu ◽  
Bruce McCarl

<p>Surface ozone pollution has been proven to impose significant damages on crops. However, the quantification of the damages was extensively derived from chamber experiments, which is not representative of actual results in farm fields due to the limitations of spatial scale, time window, etc. In this work, we attempt to empirically fill this gap using county-level data in the United States from 1980 to 2015. We explore ozone impacts on corn, soybeans, spring wheat, winter wheat, barley, cotton, peanuts, rice, sorghum, and sunflower. We also incorporate a variety of climate variables to investigate potential ozone-climate interactions. More importantly, we shed light on future yield consequences of ozone and climate change individually and jointly under a moderate warming scenario. Our findings suggest significant negative impacts of ozone exposure for eight of the ten crops we examined, excepting barley and winter wheat, which contradicts experimental results. The average annual damages were estimated at $6.03 billion (in 2015 U.S. dollar) from 1980 to 2015. We also find rising temperatures tend to worsen ozone damages while water supply would mitigate that. Finally, elevated ozone driven by future climate change would cause much smaller damages than the direct effects of climate change itself.</p>


2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 643-658 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul X. Flanagan ◽  
Jeffrey B. Basara ◽  
Jason C. Furtado ◽  
Xiangming Xiao

Abstract Precipitation variability has increased in recent decades across the Great Plains (GP) of the United States. Drought and its associated drivers have been studied in the GP region; however, periods of excessive precipitation (pluvials) at seasonal to interannual scales have received less attention. This study narrows this knowledge gap with the overall goal of understanding GP precipitation variability during pluvial periods. Through composites of relevant atmospheric variables from the ECMWF twentieth-century reanalysis (ERA-20C), key differences between southern Great Plains (SGP) and northern Great Plains (NGP) pluvial periods are highlighted. The SGP pluvial pattern shows an area of negative height anomalies over the southwestern United States with wind anomalies consistent with frequent synoptic wave passages along a southward-shifted North Pacific jet. The NGP pattern during pluvial periods, by contrast, depicts anomalously low heights in the northwestern United States and an anomalously extended Pacific jet. Analysis of daily heavy precipitation events reveals the key drivers for these pluvial events, namely, an east–west height gradient and associated stronger poleward moisture fluxes. Therefore, the results show that pluvial years over the GP are likely driven by synoptic-scale processes rather than by anomalous seasonal precipitation driven by longer time-scale features. Overall, the results present a possible pathway to predicting the occurrence of pluvial years over the GP and understanding the causes of GP precipitation variability, potentially mitigating the threats of water scarcity and excesses for the public and agricultural sectors.


Plant Disease ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 93 (5) ◽  
pp. 538-544 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. Kolmer ◽  
D. L. Long ◽  
M. E. Hughes

In 2007, leaf rust of wheat was severe throughout the Great Plains region of North America. Yield losses in wheat due to leaf rust were estimated to be 14% in Kansas. Collections of Puccinia triticina were obtained from rust-infected leaves provided by cooperators throughout the United States and from surveys of wheat fields and nurseries in the Great Plains, Ohio River Valley, southeast, California, and Washington State in order to determine the virulence of the wheat leaf rust population in 2007. Single uredinial isolates (868 in total) were derived from the collections and tested for virulence phenotype on lines of Thatcher wheat that are near-isogenic for leaf rust resistance genes Lr1, Lr2a, Lr2c, Lr3a, Lr9, Lr16, Lr24, Lr26, Lr3ka, Lr11, Lr17a, Lr30, LrB, Lr10, Lr14a, Lr18, Lr21, and Lr28, and on winter wheat lines with genes Lr41 and Lr42. Fifty-two virulence phenotypes were found. Virulence phenotypes TDBJG, MFPSC, and TDBJH were among the four most common phenotypes and were all virulent to resistance gene Lr24. These phenotypes were found throughout the Great Plains region. Phenotype MLDSD, with virulence to Lr9, Lr17, and Lr41, was also widely distributed in the Great Plains. In the soft red winter wheat region of the southeastern states, phenotypes TCRKG, with virulence to genes Lr11, Lr26, and Lr18, and MFGJH, with virulence to Lr24, Lr26, and Lr11, were among the common phenotypes. Virulence phenotypes with virulence to Lr16 were most frequent in the spring wheat region of the northern Great Plains. Virulence phenotypes with virulence to Lr11, Lr18, and Lr26 were most common in the soft red winter areas of the southeastern states and Ohio Valley. Virulence to Lr21 was not found in any of the tested isolates.


2014 ◽  
Vol 119 (6) ◽  
pp. 3438-3459 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Wu ◽  
Yangang Liu ◽  
Michael P. Jensen ◽  
Tami Toto ◽  
Michael J. Foster ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Edward Maibach ◽  
Bernadette Woods Placky ◽  
Joe Witte ◽  
Keith Seitter ◽  
Ned Gardiner ◽  
...  

Global climate change is influencing the weather in every region of the United States, often in harmful ways. Yet, like people in many countries, most Americans view climate change as a threat that is distant in space (i.e., not here), time (i.e., not now), and species (i.e., not us). To manage risk and avoid harm, it is imperative that the public, professionals, and policy-makers make decisions with an informed understanding of our changing climate. In the United States, broadcast meteorologists are ideally positioned to educate Americans about the current and projected impacts of climate change in their community. They have tremendous reach, are trusted sources of climate information, and are highly skilled science communicators. When our project began in 2009, we learned that many U.S.-based TV weathercasters were potentially interested in reporting on climate change, but few actually were, citing significant barriers including a lack of time to prepare and air stories, and lack of access to high-quality content that can be rapidly used in their broadcasts, social media, and community presentations. To test the premise that TV weathercasters can be effective climate educators—if supported with high-quality localized climate communication content—in 2010 George Mason University, Climate Central, and WLTX-TV (Columbia, SC) developed and pilot-tested Climate Matters, a series of short on-air (and online) segments about the local impacts of climate change, delivered by the station’s chief meteorologist. During the first year, more than a dozen stories aired. To formally evaluate Climate Matters, we conducted pre- and post-test surveys of local TV news viewers in Columbia. After one year, WLTX viewers had developed a more science-based understanding of climate change than viewers of other local news stations, confirming our premise that when TV weathercasters report on the local implications of climate change, their viewers learn. Through a series of expansions, including the addition of important new partners—the American Meteorological Society, National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and Yale University—Climate Matters has become a comprehensive nationwide climate communication resource program for American broadcast meteorologists. As of March 2016, 313 local weathercasters nationwide (at 202 stations in 111 media markets) are participating in the program, receiving new content on a weekly basis. Some leaders in the World Meteorological Organization are now promoting the concept of “TV weather presenters as climate change communicators,” and collaborative discussions are underway with Climate Central. In this article, we review the theoretical basis of the program, detail its development and national scale-up, and conclude with insights for how to develop climate communication initiatives for other professional communities of practice in the U.S. and other countries.


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