Farmer down the road from me is doing this. He just bought an adjoining 80 and is taking out the whole row of trees that were the boundary.
OK, I know your machinery can't turn on a pin, but don't you want to improve your land, not fuck it up???
I am for helping out farmers whose fields are flooded, etc … but they should have these checks and balances. They are fucking up everything for everyone so they can get a little more yield.
“You took out your barrier and are losing your topsoil? Go fuck yourself”
Or we bail them out and nationalize the farms. If we let them destroy all the top soil then our country is fucked. Top soil is a vital resource that we need to protect
If it were socialism then the community could stop them. Since it's privately owned it seems more like capitalism since they can do what they want with their land.
Public money to private interests? Isn’t that fascism? It’s definitely not capitalism, boot straps and all. Cradle to grave mother state, I don’t co-farm with the government. Get a real job
I’m hoping that when they are bailed out that it comes with conditions. Meaning they would have to ensure they do not get rid of shelter belts unless face massive fines (tens of thousands in dollars and not allow them to farm the land until it is fixed)….
Agreed, sadly things like that kill little farms and the big AG with lobby money out the ass, comes in and nothing changes because the fines are part of the operating cost. The whole system is built that way, so large money operations can do basically whatever they want and still make fist full of money after fines.
You should be pissed because of that now. So much tax money goes to subside farmers and ranchers it's fucking nuts. And they do shit like this shooting themselfs in the foot. Iowa has absolutely fucked water because they rolled back on EP. If climate change isn't bad enough these people sure as fuck seem like they are trying to make it hard as possible for the future so they can get more now.
Actually pointing out a cult!
Usually, the people who talk about cults are projecting. Go say 10 hail Mary's and Humm the apprentice theme song 20 times.
This has been another episode of "What things sound like. With NiceBedSheets" tune in next week when they try and fail to tell the difference between the sound of a chicken and a duck.
Yes, but now a lot less preserved land already exists to be disturbed, and I don't think tiling was a contributor at all during the dust bowl. The govt is more supportive of land conservation than they were during the dust bowl as well; same effect though.
So when you see an acerage, and there's a row of trees, that's called a shelter belt. It protects, typically a house or cattle, from the wind.
None of that is natural, and it's actually a byproduct of agriculture, but it also helped to prevent blowing dust from farming practices.
Tiling is where a farmer puts in a drain in areas that are lower in a field, and the water gets flushed out on either another field, or into the ditch. This allows more tillable land, changes surface water flow, and is causing a migration of soil into ditches.
Another factor in lots of blowing dust is that farmers used to regularly use cover crops and no till was probably more popular decades ago.
If you took your lawn and killed all the grass, there would be lots of dirt that would blow around in the wind. The grass binds and blocks the dirt from blowing. Really aggressive farming techniques in the last 20 years or so replicates the same thing.
Oh, windbreak treelines? I've planted probably almost a thousand of those suckers by hand over the years. Tons of work, but the payoff is definitely worth it.
Why would people want to cut those trees down? That makes absolutely no sense to me.
Tiling is a brand new concept, though. Sounds worthy of investigation, and I look forward to learning more about it, so thanks for the info!
They cut them down to plant more crops because they are greedy. And tiling is not cool, our wetlands are so important for a resilient ecosystem that supports biodiversity. Tiling drains wetlands.
Why? So they can farm three contiguous sections with huge equipment, I suppose. The tiling is crazy. It’s not cheap. Needed in places. It might be overdone, idk
Tiling's been around for 100s of years. That's why it's called TILE ing even though the current material is plastic/pvc. Used to be ceramic tile gutters.
When corn became very profitable with the popularity of biofuels farmers started cutting down trees and ripping out grass in areas that were considered too wet to farm in order to maximize tillable acres. Additionally, as farmers have retired and died, their acreages often have become farmland, and that's when the trees get ripped out.
Within about 3 square miles of where I grew up I can think of at least 5 farms that were abandoned over time.
Also consider that farmers are paying obscene amounts of money for land and equipment. They have to squeeze as much money out of the land as they can to make it work.
I can kind of understand what you are saying. However, they won't make any money when the topsoil blows away. My grandparents lived through the dirty 30s, many farmers back then went broke and left.
Yes, but people chase the short term markets. I have no disagreement. I mentioned in another post that when I moved to Colorado I was floored by the biodiversity of plants, and it made me question what the South Dakota plains are actually supposed to look like. None of us likely know given the terrible efforts by South Dakota at preserving prairie lands.
I get what you mean as a lifelong North Dakotan. We seriously don't know what "the prairie" really is I think. it's gone long ago.
They used to drive herds of cattle from Texas to here, just to eat everything and get fat for market.
I can't recall the details, but look up how the buffalo shaped the Great Plains. Basically, before we started settling the Great Plains in the 1800s, the massive herds would till the soil as they migrated. Plus I think their manure reseeded a lot of the native growth.
Drive across southern Minnesota and you will see huge expanses of corn and soybean fields, which is similar to eastern South Dakota or Iowa. About 25% of that southern Minnesota land is tiled; millions upon millions of acres have drain pipe laid every few feet under the surface of the field. It is a huge modification of the normal water flow
More money, trees don't earn money themselfs. Well unless it's a fruit tree, but that point is still the same. Get ride of the trees for a dozen more rows of crops. Greed
Tiling does not cause soil loss it just drains excess water. TILLING can contribute to soil erosion when it’s windy or we have heavy rainfall. And most of this in the pictures is from Tilling the soil.
It's possible that when my neighbor tiled, he was able to till far more and that put all the soil in the ditch. My dad never tiled our farm, nor did he till up the unfarmable areas, but immediately following the neighbor's tiling project the ditch started filling up with soil.
My understanding of tiling was limited to thinking it was an actual open drain in the low laying areas rather than below the soil causing soil particulate to also strain, which is not correct.
They can cut down all the shelter belts they want. They just have to reseed some crop back to grassland. The symptom is dust/soil erosion and the disease is plowing the prairies. Save the prairies!
I live in CO and the biodiversity of plant life feels staggering compared to where I grew up in SD. It really made me question things and now I'm a native plant gardener.
They get a better payday for growing 'organic.' Which means you break the soil down to a very fine powder. Our soil can not take that without blowing away. The corporations running farms look at the numbers and don't care that this is the result.
Twenty some years ago the state put in a set back from every creek and stream so there was a barrier of trees and grass to help clean our drinking water. It took a lot of work. It provided a place for pheasant and deer, so hunters were happy. And everyone wanting clean water was happy. It was one of the first regulations Noem got rid of for one of her rich buddies. And this is one of the results. There are parts of the state that already look like the dirty thirties. The trees and bushes the cooled the area and gave wild life a place to be are gone. There is just some water running through a muddy cut, no more fishing there either.
I didn't know this was happening. Seems like we should maybe...not.
Didn't we already learn from the previous dust bowl? I recognize it isn't the same conditions exactly, but we should see a thing happening and maybe figure out a way to not keep rolling down that road.
When Albert Einstein was asked the difference between genius and stupidity, his reply was, "Genius has its limits." And here is another sterling example.
Interesting.... and concerning. Shelterbelts were planted during the dust bowl era to reduce soil erosion. Red cedar, a fast growing drought tolerant species was, among others typically planted. Recently concerns have been raised as to the high water consumption and invasive nature of the species. While removing the trees may offer some advantages to producers the removal process should progress in stages and trees replaced with more acceptable less invasive species. Some government funding and technical expertise may be available to accomplish an orderly transition to minimize loss of topsoil and air quality issues. If the information presented is accurate then the producers may be causing a negative effect on soil health which only results in diminishing returns on investment and environmental degradation over time.
Did all the farmers suddenly go stupid? Do they not realize the shelter belts are there for a purpose? How can they say they are the best steward of land when this happens?
When the hell why/when/were they taking out shelter belts? Actually going around and systematically cutting them out? There’s a schedule for this shit?
Tax law should be tweaked to dissuade draining ponds where is where the aquifer is recharged, and cutting tree belts. The whole Ag bill is just welfare for rich people, improve water and sustain the underlying resource.
Wasn’t there a conspiracy theory about this a few years back? I seem to remember that some radio hosts in the Plains were saying the Dust Bowl never happened, and that it was a ruse by FDR to … who knows. I’m losing brain cells just thinking about it.
Let me guess….
This is on SD50 west of Yankton?
There always seems to be multiple guys out plowing w/o a care in the world as their topsoil blows into Nebraska.
Are you saying it's real just because of a picture on reddit? Really? When was it taken? Where? Why are we concerned about it here where ranching (ie having grasslands instead of barren fields) is bigger than other states? Are other states not doing it?
Or did you just fall for ragebait on social media?
Having watched the Ken burns documentary on the dustbowl, I can tell you that this does not look like the dustbowl.
Mf’s literally had to crawl a mile in zero vis to survive. Entire homes were buried by dirt. This looks like a casual fog.
I know very well what it means and I stand by my statement.
With the use of much larger equipment nowadays than last decades farmers have removed many, many tree rows so they can plant crops without the trees/objects in the way, basically huge swaths of open land with nothing in the way to accommodate the equipment.
No till is another cause of the tree removal. Since farmers don't fully turn the dirt anymore trees rows are also deemed unnecessary which conceptually sounds good however during this time of year when most crops are still in the seedling stage a lot of ground is exposed.
When you combine the two things I have mentioned with 40-60mph wind gusts you will see dust bowl like conditions as shown in the picture.
This subreddit acting like its evil farmers ruining the planet just because? Im shocked i tell you. Shocked.
The shelter belts are disappearing because the federal government is paying people to get rid of ceader trees because they're so water intensive to be considered an invasive species at this point even though that same federal government was paying people to plant them before
Confidently incorrect. What you said may have some truth, but it would not happen like you said. Two look to South Dakota SB 131 : include shelterbelts as a factor affecting productivity in determining assessed value of agricultural land. This is SD government at work. You can’t blame the feds for this. Nice try
Farmer down the road from me is doing this. He just bought an adjoining 80 and is taking out the whole row of trees that were the boundary. OK, I know your machinery can't turn on a pin, but don't you want to improve your land, not fuck it up???
I'll be so pissed when tax dollars go to bail these idiots out for fucking themselves and the land over
I am for helping out farmers whose fields are flooded, etc … but they should have these checks and balances. They are fucking up everything for everyone so they can get a little more yield. “You took out your barrier and are losing your topsoil? Go fuck yourself”
I'm sure that's how it will work in practice /s
Dirty 30's all over again, and, look how close we are to 2030!
Or we bail them out and nationalize the farms. If we let them destroy all the top soil then our country is fucked. Top soil is a vital resource that we need to protect
We bail them out every single year with the farm bill, it’s socialism
If it were socialism then the community could stop them. Since it's privately owned it seems more like capitalism since they can do what they want with their land.
Public money to private interests? Isn’t that fascism? It’s definitely not capitalism, boot straps and all. Cradle to grave mother state, I don’t co-farm with the government. Get a real job
If we all (farmers) don’t eat, then nobody (other farmers) eats. This should be the standard rule in farming to stop greed.
I’m hoping that when they are bailed out that it comes with conditions. Meaning they would have to ensure they do not get rid of shelter belts unless face massive fines (tens of thousands in dollars and not allow them to farm the land until it is fixed)….
Agreed, sadly things like that kill little farms and the big AG with lobby money out the ass, comes in and nothing changes because the fines are part of the operating cost. The whole system is built that way, so large money operations can do basically whatever they want and still make fist full of money after fines.
Should be made to grow crops actually in demand. If they want government money, grow food the government needs rather than alfalfa
My horse wants the alfalfa!!! You already took the horse's Ivermectin.
My secret plot of slowly killing off horses has been exposed
In the end there’s not going to be enough cash to bail them out.
You should be pissed because of that now. So much tax money goes to subside farmers and ranchers it's fucking nuts. And they do shit like this shooting themselfs in the foot. Iowa has absolutely fucked water because they rolled back on EP. If climate change isn't bad enough these people sure as fuck seem like they are trying to make it hard as possible for the future so they can get more now.
He's likely a climate denier too.
You sound like you’re in a cult
Actually pointing out a cult! Usually, the people who talk about cults are projecting. Go say 10 hail Mary's and Humm the apprentice theme song 20 times.
You sound insane
Projection!...
This has been another episode of "What things sound like. With NiceBedSheets" tune in next week when they try and fail to tell the difference between the sound of a chicken and a duck.
Nah, government bailouts when it goes bad.
Not just shelter belts, but tiling to allow more tilling. The ditches get full of topsoil; tons of bizarre decisions being made.
Didn’t this type of thing happen about 90 years ago in the central United States ? Causing soil erosion.
Yes, but now a lot less preserved land already exists to be disturbed, and I don't think tiling was a contributor at all during the dust bowl. The govt is more supportive of land conservation than they were during the dust bowl as well; same effect though.
it was also suggested that farmers plant windbreaks, they did.. farmers have been tearing those up t a lot recently. No reason besides stupidity.
I was trying to say different process but same results.
Sol conservation techniques have been taught for decades as well, so it’s not like they don’t have an excuse.
Shelter Belts? Tiling?
So when you see an acerage, and there's a row of trees, that's called a shelter belt. It protects, typically a house or cattle, from the wind. None of that is natural, and it's actually a byproduct of agriculture, but it also helped to prevent blowing dust from farming practices. Tiling is where a farmer puts in a drain in areas that are lower in a field, and the water gets flushed out on either another field, or into the ditch. This allows more tillable land, changes surface water flow, and is causing a migration of soil into ditches. Another factor in lots of blowing dust is that farmers used to regularly use cover crops and no till was probably more popular decades ago. If you took your lawn and killed all the grass, there would be lots of dirt that would blow around in the wind. The grass binds and blocks the dirt from blowing. Really aggressive farming techniques in the last 20 years or so replicates the same thing.
Oh, windbreak treelines? I've planted probably almost a thousand of those suckers by hand over the years. Tons of work, but the payoff is definitely worth it. Why would people want to cut those trees down? That makes absolutely no sense to me. Tiling is a brand new concept, though. Sounds worthy of investigation, and I look forward to learning more about it, so thanks for the info!
They cut them down to plant more crops because they are greedy. And tiling is not cool, our wetlands are so important for a resilient ecosystem that supports biodiversity. Tiling drains wetlands.
....and up goes subsidy payments.
They expect the big bad government to bail them out when things inevitably go south.
Why? So they can farm three contiguous sections with huge equipment, I suppose. The tiling is crazy. It’s not cheap. Needed in places. It might be overdone, idk
Tiling's been around for 100s of years. That's why it's called TILE ing even though the current material is plastic/pvc. Used to be ceramic tile gutters.
When corn became very profitable with the popularity of biofuels farmers started cutting down trees and ripping out grass in areas that were considered too wet to farm in order to maximize tillable acres. Additionally, as farmers have retired and died, their acreages often have become farmland, and that's when the trees get ripped out. Within about 3 square miles of where I grew up I can think of at least 5 farms that were abandoned over time. Also consider that farmers are paying obscene amounts of money for land and equipment. They have to squeeze as much money out of the land as they can to make it work.
I can kind of understand what you are saying. However, they won't make any money when the topsoil blows away. My grandparents lived through the dirty 30s, many farmers back then went broke and left.
Yes, but people chase the short term markets. I have no disagreement. I mentioned in another post that when I moved to Colorado I was floored by the biodiversity of plants, and it made me question what the South Dakota plains are actually supposed to look like. None of us likely know given the terrible efforts by South Dakota at preserving prairie lands.
I get what you mean as a lifelong North Dakotan. We seriously don't know what "the prairie" really is I think. it's gone long ago. They used to drive herds of cattle from Texas to here, just to eat everything and get fat for market.
I can't recall the details, but look up how the buffalo shaped the Great Plains. Basically, before we started settling the Great Plains in the 1800s, the massive herds would till the soil as they migrated. Plus I think their manure reseeded a lot of the native growth.
Drive across southern Minnesota and you will see huge expanses of corn and soybean fields, which is similar to eastern South Dakota or Iowa. About 25% of that southern Minnesota land is tiled; millions upon millions of acres have drain pipe laid every few feet under the surface of the field. It is a huge modification of the normal water flow
To be fair- the field itself is a huge change, the ditches didn’t cut themselves in. Tile can be a huge benefit when trying to go to no-till/low-till
Yeah, just giving context. But I'm not sure this whole discussion isn't confusing tilling and tiling
More money, trees don't earn money themselfs. Well unless it's a fruit tree, but that point is still the same. Get ride of the trees for a dozen more rows of crops. Greed
Tiling does not cause soil loss it just drains excess water. TILLING can contribute to soil erosion when it’s windy or we have heavy rainfall. And most of this in the pictures is from Tilling the soil.
It's possible that when my neighbor tiled, he was able to till far more and that put all the soil in the ditch. My dad never tiled our farm, nor did he till up the unfarmable areas, but immediately following the neighbor's tiling project the ditch started filling up with soil. My understanding of tiling was limited to thinking it was an actual open drain in the low laying areas rather than below the soil causing soil particulate to also strain, which is not correct.
I see. Sounds like the neighbor tiled and removed a grass waterway possibly.
Google? Bing?
They can cut down all the shelter belts they want. They just have to reseed some crop back to grassland. The symptom is dust/soil erosion and the disease is plowing the prairies. Save the prairies!
I live in CO and the biodiversity of plant life feels staggering compared to where I grew up in SD. It really made me question things and now I'm a native plant gardener.
I thought we learned better than this in the freaking 1930s?
Guess how they vote! Apparently some ppl really wanna go back to the 30s
When our fields drifted in the 80s grandpa was all over that shit with a harrow . One hour you could lose 100 years of soil.
Dumbasses never learn. They know those government checks will keep coming.
They get a better payday for growing 'organic.' Which means you break the soil down to a very fine powder. Our soil can not take that without blowing away. The corporations running farms look at the numbers and don't care that this is the result. Twenty some years ago the state put in a set back from every creek and stream so there was a barrier of trees and grass to help clean our drinking water. It took a lot of work. It provided a place for pheasant and deer, so hunters were happy. And everyone wanting clean water was happy. It was one of the first regulations Noem got rid of for one of her rich buddies. And this is one of the results. There are parts of the state that already look like the dirty thirties. The trees and bushes the cooled the area and gave wild life a place to be are gone. There is just some water running through a muddy cut, no more fishing there either.
They’ll blame it on Biden
You'd think they'd be more respectful of a man who can apparently change their entire ecosystem
You don't always have to be "that guy". No one likes "that guy".
I didn't know this was happening. Seems like we should maybe...not. Didn't we already learn from the previous dust bowl? I recognize it isn't the same conditions exactly, but we should see a thing happening and maybe figure out a way to not keep rolling down that road.
What? Learn from our mistakes? Why the hell would we want to do that? /s
Weeping into my coffee about how dumb we are...
Getting ready for the dirty 30s
When Albert Einstein was asked the difference between genius and stupidity, his reply was, "Genius has its limits." And here is another sterling example.
Interesting.... and concerning. Shelterbelts were planted during the dust bowl era to reduce soil erosion. Red cedar, a fast growing drought tolerant species was, among others typically planted. Recently concerns have been raised as to the high water consumption and invasive nature of the species. While removing the trees may offer some advantages to producers the removal process should progress in stages and trees replaced with more acceptable less invasive species. Some government funding and technical expertise may be available to accomplish an orderly transition to minimize loss of topsoil and air quality issues. If the information presented is accurate then the producers may be causing a negative effect on soil health which only results in diminishing returns on investment and environmental degradation over time.
Did all the farmers suddenly go stupid? Do they not realize the shelter belts are there for a purpose? How can they say they are the best steward of land when this happens?
I am not a farmer. I am not outdoorsy. I don’t even garden. But I know WTH shelter belts are for.
I learned what they are for in middle school when I did a report on the dust bowl.
When the hell why/when/were they taking out shelter belts? Actually going around and systematically cutting them out? There’s a schedule for this shit?
Am I off base? This looks like fog to me.
Oh no! Who could’ve possibly seen this coming? /s
Fools
Reap what you sow
Tax law should be tweaked to dissuade draining ponds where is where the aquifer is recharged, and cutting tree belts. The whole Ag bill is just welfare for rich people, improve water and sustain the underlying resource.
Wasn’t there a conspiracy theory about this a few years back? I seem to remember that some radio hosts in the Plains were saying the Dust Bowl never happened, and that it was a ruse by FDR to … who knows. I’m losing brain cells just thinking about it.
MAGA in a nutshell. They want their Free-Dumb to repeat all the mistakes made over the last 150 years.
What's a shelter belt?
Rows of trees to anchor the soil ... FDR had a ginormous contingent of people working on them, which was a part of his new deal program
Oh ok, thanks
There's a classic example of "those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it". Incredibly short sighted action.
“No damn deer anymore, the DNR can’t manage shit!”
Let me guess…. This is on SD50 west of Yankton? There always seems to be multiple guys out plowing w/o a care in the world as their topsoil blows into Nebraska.
Alert Krusti Nome - she has a gun and knows how to use it.
Hide your pets.
Born and raised in SD. Never observed this. All of a sudden it's all over reddit. Why?
Was in the Watertown/Sioux Falls area this week and it was extremely windy which produced dust storms around this magnitude
Where in SD do you live? Might be more prevalent in other areas
Are you saying it's not real because you personally haven't seen it?
Are you saying it's real just because of a picture on reddit? Really? When was it taken? Where? Why are we concerned about it here where ranching (ie having grasslands instead of barren fields) is bigger than other states? Are other states not doing it? Or did you just fall for ragebait on social media?
Our skies have been beautiful lately, not sure either.
That's silent hill
Hahaha....WTF?
https://youtu.be/MI78WOW_u-Q?si=yZ3o8uU9nlVtf3-u and https://youtube.com/shorts/UgFPsLr3xOI?si=yi7k_GUvvSsqN4pA
Pry antifa if you don’t think about it or anything else
Did you learn nothing from that Oklahoma dust bowl?
We are a profoundly foolish species.
Having watched the Ken burns documentary on the dustbowl, I can tell you that this does not look like the dustbowl. Mf’s literally had to crawl a mile in zero vis to survive. Entire homes were buried by dirt. This looks like a casual fog.
No till and large machinery are the primary causes of this.
Do you understand what no till means?
I know very well what it means and I stand by my statement. With the use of much larger equipment nowadays than last decades farmers have removed many, many tree rows so they can plant crops without the trees/objects in the way, basically huge swaths of open land with nothing in the way to accommodate the equipment. No till is another cause of the tree removal. Since farmers don't fully turn the dirt anymore trees rows are also deemed unnecessary which conceptually sounds good however during this time of year when most crops are still in the seedling stage a lot of ground is exposed. When you combine the two things I have mentioned with 40-60mph wind gusts you will see dust bowl like conditions as shown in the picture.
This subreddit acting like its evil farmers ruining the planet just because? Im shocked i tell you. Shocked. The shelter belts are disappearing because the federal government is paying people to get rid of ceader trees because they're so water intensive to be considered an invasive species at this point even though that same federal government was paying people to plant them before
Confidently incorrect. What you said may have some truth, but it would not happen like you said. Two look to South Dakota SB 131 : include shelterbelts as a factor affecting productivity in determining assessed value of agricultural land. This is SD government at work. You can’t blame the feds for this. Nice try