The Dust Bowl: Could it happen again?

[cycloneML]

So many similarities:

1) Tilling fence row to fence row
2) If prices are low, produce more (go wheat mad)
3) Suitcase farmers
4) Land: "there not making any more of it. it will go higher"
5) Drought
6) Continuing to turn the soil "wrong side up"
7) Government egging it on


Ken Burns' 'Dust Bowl' recounts 'the greatest man-made ecological disaster in history' - NY Daily News

[cobraclone71]

I highly doubt it. Tillage practices have evolved so much since then.

[DistrictCyclone]

I just read an article about this, actually:

Are We Headed for Another Dust Bowl? | Science & Nature | Smithsonian Magazine

[CyForPresident]

No


...

[Cyclonepride]

We should probably quit making food. There would be a lot less people for the government to take care of.

[Tre4ISU]

We should probably quit making food. There would be a lot less people for the government to take care of.

Or at least quit making it more efficiently.

[bugs4cy]

Yes. We are pushing row crop production deeper and deeper into unsuitable/arid land. Drought tolerance is thee hot area of biotech research. And for all the advances in tillage practices, farmers are wholesale ignoring it.

[ISUAgronomist]

Sure it could happen again. Drought is currently not even close to the conditions that contributed to the Dust Bowl. Tillage operations have also improved. Sure not everyone is using (or can use) full no-till practices. Remember the moldboard plow? Yeah, next to nobody owns one anymore, which was a huge contributor to the erosion potential during the Dust Bowl.

Like I said, it could happen but the contributing conditions are not even close right now.

Drought tolerant genetics will be integrated into all crop seed (when developed) not just for usage on new, marginal land. Producing more on the same acreage.

[TheBentStick]

Sure, it will happen again, and the items on your list won't matter a bit. Mother Nature is a beyotch and could care less about mankind or his/her tilling technique. Personally, I'm ready for the next Ice Age, so that the government will tell me to use spray deodorant again.....because we control it all, ya know.

[ISUAgronomist]

Sure, it will happen again, and the items on your list won't matter a bit. Mother Nature is a beyotch and could care less about mankind or his/her tilling technique.

Exactly, nature will be the driver. No matter what we're doing.

[MRN4ISU]

Great show on PBS ..

[00clone]

Sure it could happen again. Drought is currently not even close to the conditions that contributed to the Dust Bowl. Tillage operations have also improved. Sure not everyone is using (or can use) full no-till practices. Remember the moldboard plow? Yeah, next to nobody owns one anymore, which was a huge contributor to the erosion potential during the Dust Bowl.

Like I said, it could happen but the contributing conditions are not even close right now.

Drought tolerant genetics will be integrated into all crop seed (when developed) not just for usage on new, marginal land. Producing more on the same acreage.

My Moldboard plow is so old, it's getting moldy.

<laughtrack.mp3>

look, I made a farmer-funny

[colbycheese]

As a soil scientist, I think it's more likely that small (yet unsustainable) amounts of soil erosion over many years will lead to the loss of almost all of the productive surface soil. There may be an occasional "duster" now and again (there was one just a few months ago), but I don't see the dust bowl happening to that extreme again.

That said, future prospects for the Natural Resource Conservation Service aren't looking too good. If that agency gets gutted, or thrown to the wayside, it could very well happen since they bring farmers most of their government supported conservation practices.

[Cydarm]

Where is this bowl? What conference would we be playing?

[brianhos]

We should probably quit making food. There would be a lot less people for the government to take care of.

We don't make food in Iowa, we grow corn.