Drew Lerner Forecasts 2017 Growing Season

Jan 19, 2017

World Weather Agri-Meteorologist Drew Lerner was the keynote speaker for the SaskCanola AGM in Saskatoon last Monday.

He told producers it will not be as wet in the 2017 growing season as it was last year - but don't expect many dry patterns until later in the summer and stretching into harvest.

"The spring season will end up being good enough that we'll be able to get rid of some of those moisture surpluses and be able to get out in the fields.

It's not going to be ideal, but we'll be able to get some of those crops out of the fields and get some of the crop in.

Then we'll be able to have some regularly occuring rainfall in the summer, and then a dry finish - and who can ask for a better deal than a dry finish," he said

Lerner also looked at 18-year weather cycles when making his long-term forecasts.

He says the closest comparison is 1981, which was pretty much average for temperature and precipitation.

"The 18-year cycle is being very inconsistent right now. There's a lot of other smaller cycles that are out there that are hanging around.

Source : Discoverestevan

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.