A sign that the climate's really changing?

Saturday, January 31, 2015

At least here in Europe, continual warnings that the planet is heating up are only half believed.  But new converts to climate change have definitely been won in German Münsterland in 2014

by NORMAN DUNN

Norbert Kreuzheck isn't a man to take big risks in his farming business. However, this summer he harvested his winter barley the earliest ever, carting the grain home between July 17 and 19 in the middle of a long hot spell. In fact, the whole summer in this area of Germany was exceptional. The national meteorological office has just announced that it represented the warmest year since weather records started more than 100 years ago.

"I thought to myself then that, if everything goes right, there's time, even here in northern Germany, for a crop of spring barley to ripen before the first frosts. Fifteen or 16 weeks were possible for the next crop. I'd never ever thought of double-cropping grain. But I saw this as a major opportunity to find out if it could really work," he recalls.

Norbert's gamble paid off handsomely. The frosts stayed away and, on Nov. 23, he caused a near traffic jam on the surrounding rural roadways through neighbours driving over to watch him manoeuvre his combine back into the field and harvest a modest (for this area) one tonne per acre of grain. "This was a very warm year," he says. "Normally, I don't harvest the autumn-sown winter barley until August."

In this area, a normal year sees winter wheat maybe drilled about a month after a winter barley harvest. Or a green manure crop such as mustard is drilled and plowed under after frost, ready for sugar beet the following spring. Average yields: winter barley 3.4 tonnes per acre and spring-sown barley 2.2 tonnes per acre (when it gets the whole growing season!).  

He remembers it was touch and go for the second crop, even in this record year. "The experiment almost failed right away because a post-harvest downpour meant we couldn't get straw baled and carted for almost a week. Then, to avoid having to use volunteers, we decided to plow the field completely before drilling the second crop. This meant we lost more time and it was July 28 before we got the seed into the ground."

But temperatures topping 25 degrees C and plentiful rain in August meant relatively fast growth, recalls Norbert. "My son reported that, by the end of August, the second crop had already formed ears and it was standing well. Even in the beginning of November, we escaped the usual dull and misty weather. The sun shone brightly every day and the nights remained mild. We all had our eyes on the grain development by that time and it came on very well."

Despite these near-perfect conditions, the barley was still developing in a race against time and this was shown by the final yield.  "There was no record crop. We cut at 36 per cent moisture content and brought home the equivalent of about one tonne per acre after drying to 16 per cent. The bushel weight wasn't that great either."

Norbert Kreuzheck only gave his second barley crop around 80 kilograms of nitrogen in the form of hog manure slurry, which was applied to the growing crop in August. He also sprayed Acanto Duo to deal with powdery mildew and net blotch. "All this input meant there was no way I made any money with the extra crop and I probably won't be trying this strategy again," he smiles.

This Münsterland farmer isn't the only one in the neighbourhood to try double cropping this year, though. Several growers drilled a total of around 100 acres of corn after winter barley. This needs about 90 days to harvest in Münsterland, but still wasn't ready for the combine in the first week of December. Corn planted in May this year was being harvested in September and, despite the high temperatures through the summer in Germany, was returning grain yields of between 2.5 and 4.4 tonnes per acre, according to information from grain merchants in the Münsterland area. Second crop corn still growing in December was expected to yield only around 1.5 to 2 tonnes per acre.

Could double cropping of cereals be coming soon as a general policy in northern Europe? Weather experts in Germany point out that the average long-term weather records for growers in Münsterland – with a mean temperature of just under 22 C in summer plus annual precipitation of 900 millimetres – still don't offer the right climate for reliable yields with a second grain crop. BF

Norman Dunn writes about European agriculture from Germany.