Dr. Jeffrey Dukes says the state of Indiana and the world of agriculture is undergoing change, especially from the climate, and it is going to be imperative to figure out the best way to deal with those changes.
Dukes, who is a professor of Forestry and Natural Resources at Purdue University as well as Director of the Purdue Climate Change Research Center, made those comments during his presentation at the Clinton County Soil & Water Conservation District’s Annual Dinner Meeting on March 5 at Arborwood.
Dukes was asked the best way for farmers to combat climate change.
“I think the best thing they can do is figure out how to manage their soils by minimizing erosion and build up soil health over time,” said Dukes. “They will need to have soil that has lots of roots in it and ways to keep the soil covered with some kind of organic matter whether its living or dead and keeping roots in the soil a lot of the year.”
The reason for this is the fact that Indiana is getting warmer to the tune of 1.2 degrees Fahrenheit over the last five decades and it’s a trend that Dukes expects to continue. He said the state will be 5 to 6 degrees warmer and 6 to 8 percent wetter by mid-century. He added growing seasons will be longer (175 to 208 days) which means the planting season will begin 3 to 4 weeks earlier in the future. It also means dealing with wetter planting conditions.
“Our summers are going to become more uncomfortable, the times of the year when we’re going to want to be outside are going to move to earlier in the spring and later in the fall and our winters are going become milder,” said Dukes. “We’ll have potentially more pest species here, including mosquito species and some of the disease carrying mosquitoes species that we have.”
Dukes also said the state is getting wetter, especially from heavier events with 42 percent of our rain coming in the harder and heavier rains. He added that winters and springs have been really wet recently and he expects that pattern to continue in the future.
“It’s clear we’re releasing more and more heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere,” he said. “As they build up in the atmosphere, it’s like basically wrapping the planet in warm blankets. It keeps us warmer over time.
“Along with that comes changes in precipitation patterns,” he continued. “We’re basically scrambling up our climate and there’s going to be a variety of consequences for that. We’re going to have to figure out how to adapt to it.”