Our farm is located is located in the East-Central Missouri, a region that averages around 44 inches of annual precipitation. Overall, this is an adequate amount of rainfall but we’ve noticed an emerging trend for a rising portion of this moisture to be deposited in large weather events during the spring months. This is offset by increasingly hotter and drier summer months. The National Weather Service’s weather model predicts that these trends will continue into the future.

This shifting of precipitation events creates many new challenges for local farmers, including requiring more time, energy, and resources spent irrigating during the summer months. If the climate predictions hold true, more and more existing local irrigation systems will reach the limit of their ability to maintain proper field moisture, whether a consequence of financial non-viability or, as in our case, the physical limitations of the available water sources.

Luckily, central Missouri is still receiving a sufficient quantity of rainfall; suggesting that a solution to drier summers may lie in passively capturing the water deposited during heavy spring rainfall and slowly releasing that moisture as precipitation wanes. Hügelkultur may be the answer.