El Nino
Our good summer has gone south, and it is amazing how quickly the fields have dried up in the county. All dryland fields have now turned brown and Bermudagrass is going dormant.
It is hard to keep enough irrigation going to pecan trees when it gets this hot and trees are starting to lose nuts. Even if you only grow a lawn, it is hard to keep things alive and growing in these temperatures.
Luckily, these high temperatures only began in August so we should not have to deal with them as long as we have had to do in some recent summers. We now must hope the promised El Nino comes sooner rather than later; September would be nice, but no promises.
The National Weather Service is saying that El Nino is present and strengthening.
They are predicting a 90% chance of a very strong El Nino event this fall and winter. Presence of El Nino is determined by equatorial sea surface temperatures (SST’s) across the central and eastern Pacific Ocean. Above average temperatures mean increased chance of El Nino.
In the last two months, above-average subsurface temperatures have strengthened across the east-central and eastern Pacific Ocean, indicating a very high chance of a strong El Nino event.
What does El Nino mean to us? Usually and depending on the strength of the El Nino, it means a wetter and warmer than normal period.
This appears to be a strong El Nino so we should expect good moisture throughout the period.
This provides us with some unique opportunities and a few challenges. It should be an excellent year to plant small grains; after two dismal years, we really need a good year.
I am not sure who can afford to purchase calves to graze small grains, but if you have some calves that you are holding or plan to keep some heifers back, this should be the year to plan on some grazing.
For homeowners, this should be a good fall to plant some landscape plants and trees. Fall is the preferred time to plant many of these and especially trees.
Fall planting usually allows them to get a good start before cold weather and come next growing season they really take off and can withstand the summer heat better than a spring planted shrub or tree.
On the other side of the coin, a mild winter may not knock back the insects and the screwworm as much as we would like. Wet winters usually make for miserable livestock feeding conditionseverything gets muddy, hay waste increases, gates get hard to get through, and livestock illnesses can be an issue.
For those that calve their herds in the winter, a wet winter really makes calving difficult, especially if we get a cold spell on top of a lot of moisture. Good and bad are associated with the El Nino, but it is hard to complain anytime we get moisture.