Drought in the news and frost in Scotland

[Catherine]

I have been just watching the news on BBC and seen that they have officially declared a drought in the East of the country. Even the farmers have been told to stop watering their crops. What is happening to our weather, there is frost in Scotland and threatening in our area in Lancashire, it's the 10th of June for heaven sake.

We are lucky that we are not short of rain, my water butts are pretty full and looking at the weather forecast we have more rain on the way this weekend.

But even though we have the water we don't have the temperatures and things are just not growing.

I hope things start to get better soon.

[Nature's Babe]

Hi Catherine, well emissions have gone up instead of down as the government planned, so I guess we have to get used to this erratic weather. We have only had 20% of our usual rainfall this spring, luckily we have had some rain this week and it is filling the water butts which were empty. For years I have been adding more humus forming compost etc in the soil and along with mulching to preserve moisture that has helped, at least despite everything stuff is still growing well. I am amazed that people are still ignoring the changes wrought by global warming, jetting off on holidays and running 2 cars, forgetting it is the poverty stricken areas of the world who will suffer most first, that is why I try to keep my emissions to a minimum. Of course our farmers are suffering, for years they have farmed the easy way with chemicals, depleting soil depth, instead of adding bulky humus to add depth and moisture retention to the soil.

[peter]

Since straw burning was banned nearly all of it is shredded at the back of the combine and tilled into the soil.
My local farmers also avail themselves of Thames Water sewage sludge mixed with paper waste in huge stinking piles.
Quite how one could apply a mulch to commercial crops such as wheat that wouldn't attract arsonists or clog machinery is a puzzle.

[alan refail]

luttrell-psalter.gif (70.69 KiB) Viewed 4396 times

Get back to traditional farming, Peter

Catherine

Sorry for contributing to further thread drift

[the custodian]

reading my local paper yesterday it said that in torbay we have only had 0.74 inches of rain since 1st jan, my water butt has been empty for a long time now so the meter has been spinning

[snooky]

Whatever happened to the plan mooted after the 1976 heatwave which was to bring water into England and Wales via the river and canal systems? Languishing in a government filing cabinet no doubt.
N.B.
You can't keep blaming the Human Race all the time for "global warming".The Earth has tipped 2degrees further away or nearer to our perpendicular axis and scientists seem to agree that this was a partial cause along with the violent activity in recent years from our Sun.
People will still go on holiday and whether or not they go by car,plane,train or even Shank's Pony they will still give out emissions.And as for the poverty stricken areas of the World if the World's governments stopped handing over huge amounts of financial aid,most of which goes into the political masters and petty officials pockets as reported in the press recently by a leading official in a leading charity,and allowed charities to have these monies to use for material aid then these poverty stricken countries might be helped in a practical way.But it won't happen and the corruption will always be there.

[Geoff]

I don't think it is officially a drought where I am staying on Holy Loch. Here are some May figures for Benmore Botanic Garden a couple of miles up the road published in the local paper today.
Greatest rainfall in one day 48.4mm on 21st.
Rain 5mm or more on 20 days.
Total measurable rain 27 days, total for month 358.4mm (14.1ins), year to date 1,248mm (49.2ins).
Wettest May in a century.
1931 to 1963 only one May over 200mm, six of the last ten years have been over 200mm.

[Mike Vogel]

But why have they pronounced us a drought area NOW? I did so 2 months ago.

[Catherine]

NB We have two vehicles - my OH needs his to go to work (agricultural engineer) I need mine to go to work. (so we could not both go to work on the bus or bike).

I do think that there are too many chemical being used on everything we eat, we are organic on our allotment and have been for 11 years, the same goes for our garden at home. I worry that even though you wash vegetables or fruit you buy in the supermarket you can't wash off the residue chemical. Consequently people are suffering from more allergies.

I agree Snooky, personally I feel we need to stop sending aid out to other countries and use that money to make a difference here. With protecting our reservoirs and building new ones etc.

I think, Alan, I have drifted my own post far enough.

[Monika]

Many connecting schemes have been implemented since the 1976 drought, Snooky. We live about a mile from a water purification plant which was almost "stand-alone" at that time, being connected just to the local reservoirs, but now water can be shipped from Kielder Reservoir in Northumberland and to and from the river Wharfe and thereby into other water systems.

By the way, this afternoon there was a tremendous cloudburst just about 20 miles east of us. And here? SFA! Well, just a few drips.

You are right, Catherine, minus three forecast for tomorrow night here - must try to cover things with fleece, plastic, newspapers ......

[alan refail]

A visible touch of ground frost developed here between 4 am and 5 am. It should disappear in the next half hour or so. I'm fairly confident nothing will have suffered. But I did make sure to water the polytunnel in the mid-afternoon sun and shut the doors early to try and maintain a bit of extra warmth.

edited to add: Just been to check; it had been down to 3C in the tunnel, but I suspect only briefly at dawn, so I don't think tomatoes, peppers, beans, cucumber etc will have suffered. Certainly the latest I can remember ground frost for many years.

[Catherine]

Good Morning Alan, you were up early this morning. I have just checked our temperature monitor outside and it has been down to 3.5 deg. Cold but I cant see any frost on the garden just a heavy dew.

I covered everything that I could at the allotment but the garden here has to take pot luck I am afraid.

[Nature's Babe]

Hi Catherine, I can see it might be necessary for work, when I worked as a district nurse in a country area I needed a car for work, but as soon as I retired I gave up my car and now travel by bus or train unless someone offers to car share then I treat them to lunch or give them a contribution to petrol. However, I see a lot of young Mums collecting their children from school in a car, when it would be simpler to walk, and many folk who commute could car share - but don't.

[glallotments]

If CO2 emissions are to blame for the lack of rain which I very much doubt then us in GB making sacrifices is not going to change things very much when China and the USA still won't cut back.

We're not actually in a drought area which I think is due to work being carried out on our water supply a few years ago

[Nature's Babe]

Peter some farms do use raised beds and water conservation, green manure could be used as a mulch.

http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech/vena ... aisedbeds/

When emissions are still rising any saving is good, ignore it and we will all suffer eventually. I want to be able to look my grandchildren in the eye and say I did my best. If everyone waits for everyone else we will never get to grips with it. Actually China are starting to take it seriously and are ahead of us in some respects, they have experienced desertification in large areas
in the past, and are losing coastal areas quicker than ours Also ours and the US individual contribution to global warming far exceeds theirs per capita.

http://chinadigitaltimes.net/china/global-warming/