Dust Bowl Worries Swirl Up As Shelterbelt Buckles

[NickB79]

http://www.npr.org/2013/09/10/220725737/dust-bowl-worries-swirl-up-as-shelterbelt-buckles

In the 1930s, the Dust Bowl ravaged crops and helped plunge the U.S. into an environmental and economic depression. Farmland in parts of Texas, Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas disappeared.

After the howling winds passed and the dust settled, federal foresters planted 100 million trees across the Great Plains, forming a giant windbreak that stretched from Texas to Canada.

Now, those trees are dying from drought, leaving some to worry if another Dust Bowl might swirl up again.

Those who don't learn from the past are bound to repeat it.

[DURHAM D]

1. I didn't read the article but they are NOT just drying out

the farmers have actually been removing them for a couple of decades so they can plant a few more acres in hay, milo, wheat, etc. It is just so sad and very stupid.

The road home now is way more barren than it was in my youth.

I will bookmark and read later. Thanks for posting.

[NickB79]

2. The NRP radio program did mention that

The farmers clearing the trees for the extra farmland. Basically, the old farmers who were alive to see how bad it was before the shelterbelts are all dead or in retirement homes now, and the current generation of farmers think their improved tilling practices will be enough to save the soil when the trees are gone.

With the cost of farmland through the roof, trees are falling all over the place. We're seeing a lot of woodland being ripped out here in Minnesota as well as farmers try to get every bushel they can out of the land.

[DURHAM D]

3. About 25 years ago my parents picked me up at the airport

and we headed home. As we drove my mother began to point out the various short-sighted farmers by name that had removed their shelter belts. My mother was born in the 20s so she remembered well when the area was swarming with "men from the city" who were hired to plant them and when they were working on her parents/grandparents farm she helped her mother take them iced tea in the afternoons and she and her brothers played baseball with them after work.

As we drove she suddenly exploded with anger and then started crying because the farmer next to her land was just finishing up removing an entire one mile long belt. She was devastated and I won't repeat everything she said about that particular farmer. She said over and over - I am so glad your grandparents are not around to see this.

As soon as we got home she called her tenant farmer and told him in no uncertain terms he was not to remove any trees from her land and in fact it was his job to do some cleaning/maintenance because it was a little ragged and she wanted the shelter belt to be better maintained and kept healthy.

My mother is gone now but we continue to remind our farmer that it must remain and it needs to be kept viable. It is a tribute to my family, farmers, and frankly to a country that struggled its way out of the depression.

[wercal]

4. I haven't seen the removal of deliberate windbreaks...

But I have seen the removal of the 'incidental' ones - being the row of trees between the field and the public road, for example...in order to squeeze out a little more production.

I live in eastern Kansas, but I occasionally travel west...and I can certainly witness the transition from relatively green eastern KS and the 'on the edge of dryness' western Kansas. And during last year's drought, I got a little bit worried about how dry things were getting, and how much dust was blown up in the air.

However, I happen to have a minority theory on windbreaks. I don't really think they do much. Just glance at the endless fields...and the miniscule tree row in the distance...is that really going to stop the wind?

Planting tree rows is generally credited with ending the dust bowl - but I think national grasslands in KS and CO did more to help...and quite frankly, I think nature ended it. And by the early 1950's, any future dust bowls were averted due to copious irrigation. I am quite sure last summer would have brought dust bowl like conditions, if we didn't have pivot irrigation...tree breaks or no tree breaks.

Don't believe me - pan around the TX panhandle and areas around it in Google Earth...and look for the familiar green circles, surrounded by brown land. Without irrigation, this land would have blown up into the air again by now.

Only problem - the aquifer is dropping....fast.

[DURHAM D]

5. I am glad you added that last sentence as I was about

to get all over you about irrigation and depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer.