Global Warming, North Dakota, Agriculture, Corn, Rotating Crops

The Dickinson Press is reporting:

In North Dakota, there were 2.2 million acres of corn planted in 2011 and 3.6 million acres the following year.

“Corn has become more popular as growers have moved away from the traditional wheat-fallow system to more intense and diverse rotations and looked for warm-season grass crops to fill a particular rotational need,” Carr said.

The success of corn in North Dakota has made it a popular rotational crop, said Roger Ashley, Dickinson Research Extension Center agronomist.

“Producers have found corn to be an excellent fit in the rotation following wheat, barley, pea and other crops,” he said. “However, we don’t like to see wheat or barley grown after corn because of the increased risk of fusarium head blight in wheat and barley. We can get away with following wheat or barley after corn in some years, but when weather conditions are right for the infection and spread of this disease at flowering and early grain fill of wheat or barley, the disease can cause significant damage.”

According to the USDA, last year in southwest North Dakota, Hettinger County planted the region’s highest number of corn acres — 29,200 acres.

Go to the link for additional information.

That surprises me. Hettinger County is a moderate size county, significantly smaller than some of the larger counties in the oil patch (Dunn, Mountrail, McKenzie, Williams). But the reason it is surprising, it is in the far west of North Dakota. I would have expected the greater corn acreage to have been in the southeast.

But another great story. By the way, this goes along with an earlier story that suggested that durum wheat will be moving farther west into Montana due to warmer weather.