Winters are getting warmer across the Midwest. That's affecting Missouri farmers
When Richard Oswald was growing up in northwestern Missouri in the 1950s, his dad had a firm rule: Don’t plant corn until mid-May, when the first oak leaves of spring are the size of squirrels’ ears.
But that rule has become a relic of the past. In Rock Port, a small farming community near the Nebraska border, the growing season now begins more than a month earlier.
“If ground conditions permit it, a lot of people will plant the first of April here,” Oswald said. “When I was a kid, you would have never done that.”
Across much of the U.S., winter is not as cold as it used to be. The four warmest Januaries on record have all occurred since 2016, a harbinger of things to come as climate change accelerates. In Missouri, winters are about 4 degrees hotter on average than in 1970 — and farmers are starting to feel the effects.
https://news.stlpublicradio.org/health-science-environment/2022-02-17/winters-are-getting-warmer-across-the-midwest-thats-affecting-missouri-farmers
