Although rice growers generally have very senior water rights, which means they’re the first ones entitled to any available water, there just wasn’t enough water for growers to make it through a season, he said, so many opted not to plant. “Reservoirs were so low and the snowpack was so bad that literally half the crop was unplanted,” said Daniel Sumner, professor of agricultural economics at UC Davis. According to the California Rice Commission, only 250,000 acres of rice will be harvested this year, about half of a typical season. In California, rice farmers sowed the lowest number of seeds since the 1950s. And this year rice had a particularly tough growing season. Just three crops – rice, wheat and corn – provide nearly half of the world’s calories. This year, a lack of water in the state meant many farmers opted not to plant. Irrigation water runs along a dried-up ditch between rice farms in Richvale, California, in 2014. “We’re an industry that’s at the mercy of the weather.” Rice left unplanted amid drought In some areas, the storm didn’t just cause fruit to fall, but entirely uprooted or flooded trees.Īlthough this storm was particularly devastating, he adds that Florida citrus growers have weathered difficult hurricane seasons before, such as Hurricane Irma in 2017. And the impact of Hurricane Ian may not yet be over, Royce said. This would be the smallest harvest since 1943. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) predicted that the state will produce 28m boxes of oranges this season, down 32% from the previous season. Florida orange growers were already facing a challenging year as greening disease, an invasive bacterium that thrives in warm climates and can kill trees and cause fruit to drop early, hit their plants. Royce reports that in some counties growers have lost as much as 80% of their fruit. The hurricane “came right up through the heart of the citrus belt”, said Ray Royce, executive director of the Highlands Citrus Growers Association. Photograph: Chris O’Meara/APĪfter Hurricane Ian ripped through Florida’s Gulf coast counties in late September, citrus growers in the state’s main agricultural counties began reporting that 50% to 90% of their fruit had been torn off the trees by high winds and rain. However, as a new area of low pressure pushes northwards to the east of Tasmania on Thursday and Friday, cold air digging in from the south is likely to produce a drop in temperature and the prospect of disruptive snowfall, particularly to the high ground of Victoria and New South Wales.Oranges rot on the ground at Roy Petteway’s citrus and cattle farm after they were knocked off the trees from Hurricane Ian in Zolfo Springs, Florida. Damaging winds gusting above 70mph affected Tasmania on Sunday, leading to widespread power disruption, with the strong winds spreading to eastern Victoria and southern parts of New South Wales. Meanwhile, in Australia forecasters are predicting some extremely windy and cold weather for south-eastern areas through the coming week, culminating in some significant snowfalls later in the week. While there are still some uncertainties, it may well be that temperatures reach the high 20s or low 30s celsius, with parts of the UK potentially receiving some of this warmth next week. Later this week and through the weekend, it looks likely that more significant heat will build through Spain and Portugal, eventually extending northwards through France. Over the past few days, warmth has started to build, particularly across parts of Germany and into the Alps. In large tracts of central and northern Europe, May has been a fairly cool month with temperatures running below the seasonal norm. The potential for disruptive wind and rain will therefore exist for parts of the Philippines and perhaps towards Taiwan. Beyond this, there is forecast model divergence but with sufficient risk that Mawar will continue to strengthen as it enters the Philippine Sea over this weekend and early next week.
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