Prairies Dealing With Extremely Dry Conditions

Apr 14, 2021

Farmers that have been seeing some snow this week probably won't mind pushing seeding back in order to benefit from the moisture.

The majority of the prairies are being impacted by dry to extremely dry conditions, that not only impact the prairies, but carry on through the Western half of the U-S and Mexico as well.

Drew Lerner, the Senior Agri-Meteorologist with World Weather Inc, says the system which brought the snow this week mainly impacted parts of Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

"Moisture totals at least in a part of that region will temporarily be lifting the moisture profile at least in the topsoil, but it's not all the way across the prairies. There's a lot of other areas that will not be impacted by this."

Lerner notes in studying past data, even within the last couple of years, they've found there's a tendency for drought relief in the southern part of the prairies to occur in April and May.

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Video: Porcine Gut Models in Nutrition Research - Dr. Li-Hsuan Chen

In this episode of The Swine Nutrition Blackbelt Podcast, Dr. Li-Hsuan Chen, postdoc researcher at Aarhus University, discusses how porcine intestinal cell lines and organoids can help study the impact of nutrition on gut health. He explains how in vivo piglet trials identify diet-driven shifts in microbiota and metabolites, while in vitro models allow researchers to test specific metabolites, barrier function, immune markers, and future organ-on-chip systems before moving back to animal studies. Listen now on all major platforms!

"In vitro models can reduce early animal use by helping researchers screen nutritional candidates before moving back to in vivo trials."

Meet the guest: Dr. Li-Hsuan Chen / li-hsuan-chen-9a95a7279 is a postdoc researcher at Aarhus University in Denmark. Research focuses on porcine gut health, host-microbe interactions, cell lines, and organoids, with PhD work at Aarhus University studying how dietary protein and amino acid levels shape gut microbiota, microbial metabolites, and intestinal epithelial responses. Learn more from Dr. Li-Hsuan Chen on The Swine Nutrition Blackbelt Podcast, available on all major platforms.