Sustainable Agriculture Discussed At 2017 Manitoba Agronomists Conference

Dec 15, 2017

Sustainability in agriculture was a common theme at the 2017 Manitoba Agronomists Conference which wrapped up Thursday at the University of Manitoba.

Michelle Nutting of Agrium kicked off the event Wednesday with her presentation which looked at the topic of sustainability.

Nutting is also a board member of the U.S.-based group Field to Market, which is a multi-stakeholder organization which includes over 130 members with participants such as Walmart and Pepsi.

She talked about some of the work the group is doing north of the border.

"In Canada, there's a really interesting across-the-border project that's being run by General Mills...where they're engaging oat growers in western Canada to do some field printing of oat production, so that General Mills can understand the sustainability of that supply chain for oats for their Quaker Oats products," explained Nutting. "What growers get out of it is to understand how efficient they are in their production, what their impacts are on the environment, as well as socially, what their impacts are."

In the United States, Field to Market is involved in over 45 projects across 32 states.

Source : Steinbachonline

Video: Spring 2026 weather outlook for Wisconsin; What an early-arriving El Niño could mean

Northeast Wisconsin is a small corner of the world, but our weather is still affected by what happens across the globe.

That includes in the equatorial Pacific, where changes between El Niño and La Niña play a role in the weather here -- and boy, have there been some abrupt changes as of late.

El Niño and La Niña are the two phases of what is collectively known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO for short. These are the swings back and forth from unusually warm to unusually cold sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean along the equator.

Since this past September, we have been in a weak La Niña, which means water temperatures near the Eastern Pacific equator have been cooler than usual. That's where we're at right now.

Even last fall, the long-term outlook suggested a return to neutral conditions by spring and potentially El Niño conditions by summer.

But there are some signs this may be happening faster than usual, which could accelerate the onset of El Niño.

Over the last few weeks, unusually strong bursts of westerly winds farther west in the Pacific -- where sea surface temperatures are warmer than average -- have been observed. There is a chance that this could accelerate the warming of those eastern Pacific waters and potentially push us into El Niño sooner than usual.

If we do enter El Nino by spring -- which we'll define as the period of March, April and May -- there are some long-term correlations with our weather here in Northeast Wisconsin.

Looking at a map of anomalously warm weather, most of the upper Great Lakes doesn't show a strong correlation, but in general, the northern tiers of the United States do tend to lean to that direction.

The stronger correlation is with precipitation. El Niño conditions in spring have historically come with a higher risk of very dry weather over that time frame, so this will definitely be a transition we'll have to watch closely as we move out of winter.