2024 Lake Erie Algal Bloom Forecast

Jun 28, 2024

NOAA Predicts Mildly Severe Algal Bloom for 2024

By Farms.com

The National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA) has released its forecast for the 2024 Lake Erie algal bloom.

The bloom is expected to have a severity index of 5 on a scale of 1 to 10. This prediction is based on multiple models that take into account phosphorus loading into the lake during spring and early summer.

Due to a wet weather pattern in early spring, water flow in the Western Lake Erie Basin was higher than normal in March and April. As a result, NOAA forecasts a "mildly severe" algal bloom.

Jordan Hoewischer, director of water quality research with the Ohio Farm Bureau, noted the importance of the timing of spring rains and nutrient applications.

"Heavier spring rains occurred before nutrients were applied to fields for the 2024 growing season," Hoewischer explained. He emphasized the need to monitor the bloom throughout the summer to understand the impact of nutrient loads.

Hoewischer highlighted the role of cover crops, promoted through the H2Ohio program, in maintaining soil and nutrient stability. The latest data from the Lake Erie Commission shows a downward trend in dissolved reactive phosphorus loading since 2015.

Hoewischer praised Ohio agriculture's efforts in reducing nutrient loss despite increasing rainfall events. He urged farmers to work with local Soil & Water districts and explore H2Ohio options to protect both soil and water quality.

The expansion of the H2Ohio initiative and the Ohio Agriculture Conservation Initiative certification program are helping farmers adopt better nutrient management practices. These efforts aim to improve water quality across Ohio.

NOAA will release the final statistics for the 2024 algal bloom in September.

Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators