Dr. Jinggao Liu , USDA, ARS, Southern Plains Agricultural Research Center, College Station, TX Dr. Alois A. Bell , USDA, ARS, Southern Plains Agricultural Research Center, College Station, TX Dr. Robert D. Stipanovic , USDA, ARS, Southern Plains Agricultural Research Center, College Station, TX Dr. Lorraine S. Puckhaber , USDA, ARS, Southern Plains Agricultural Research Center, College Station, TX

The Great Plains low-level jet has been related to summer precipitation over the northern Great Plains and Midwest through its moisture transport and convergence at the jet exit area. Much less studied has been its negative relationship with precipitation over the southern Great Plains and the Gulf coastal area. This work shows that the southerly low-level winds at 30°–40°N over the southern Gr...

Hay and silage crops are integral parts of beef production in the Great Plains. In the southern Great Plains, a growing dairy industry is adding demand for silage and hay. Corn silage has long served the region well, producing consistent high quality silage. However, many areas of the southern Great Plains no longer have the irrigation capacity to successfully produce corn silage. Forage sorghu...

Severe hail is a common event in the Southern Plains of the United States. However, few studies have been conducted to quantitatively answer the question: how much hail occurs at any given location? Given the coverage of WSR-88D radars over the Southern Plains and recent technological advancements including hail detection algorithms, a compilation of severe hail swaths was completed for the per...

M.J. Brewer *, Texas AgriLife Research and Department of Entomology, Texas AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Corpus Christi, Corpus Christi, TX 78406; J.S. Armstrong, USDA ARS Beneficial Insect Research Unit, Kika de la Garza Subtropical Agricultural Research Center, Weslaco, TX 78596; E.G. Medrano, USDA ARS Cotton Pathology Research Unit, Southern Plains Agricultural Research Center, C...

gypsiferous soils occur in xeric, ustic, and aridic moisture regimes. environmental conditions affect the mode of gypsum formation. gypsiferous soils in fars province, southern iran, are found in piedmont plains, flood plains, and alluvial plains. the objective of this work was to investigate the micromorphology of gypsum crystals formed under different soil moisture regimes. the results indica...

A large imbalance between recharge and water withdrawal has caused vital regions of the High Plains Aquifer (HPA) to experience significant declines in storage. A new predevelopment map coupled with a synthesis of annual water levels demonstrates that aquifer storage has declined by approximately 410 km(3) since the 1930s, a 15% larger decline than previous estimates. If current rates of declin...

Aquifer overexploitation could significantly impact crop production in the United States because 60% of irrigation relies on groundwater. Groundwater depletion in the irrigated High Plains and California Central Valley accounts for ~50% of groundwater depletion in the United States since 1900. A newly developed High Plains recharge map shows that high recharge in the northern High Plains result...

Destructive wildfire outbreaks are a preeminent natural hazard on the grass-dominated landscape of southern Great Plains. These Plains (SGPWOs) characterized by tens wildfires that evolve spatial and temporal scales closely tied to passage midlatitude cyclones when dormant herbaceous vegetation is particularly dry abundant. Ten SGPWOs inflicted tragic losses life property across eastern New Mex...

Mostly stabilized late Holocene eolian sands on the Southern High Plains of the United States were studied to determine their origins and to assess whether present dune stability depends more strongly on sediment supply, sediment availability, or transport limitations. Geomorphic, sedimentological, and geochemical trends indicate that late Holocene dunes formed under westerly paleowinds, broadl...