Posted in “A View of Nature,” Pekin Daily Times Online Blog, June 24, 2012
The evidence has been clear for some time now: a large portion of central Illinois is experiencing a severe drought, of a kind normally seen only once in ten years. Streams are running low or dry; and from crops to natural areas, vegetation is visibly suffering.
And nowhere is this drought more evident than in the pure sand hills of Mason County. Sand has a poor ability to retain water or nutrients even under favorable conditions, and when a drought hits in the sandy areas of Mason County, conditions can be almost desert-like.
During such conditions, gardens and croplands must be watered without fail. In the odd corners of corn fields not reached by the irrigation rigs, for example, leaves are discolored and curled, an adaptation of the plant to minimize water loss and its exposure to full sunlight. The plant does this to survive, but the ultimate result will be poorer crop yields.
Grabbing a deep handful of sandy soil shows that the soil has no moisture. The infrequent, short periods of rain so far this season have had little effect. Unless the current pattern changes, the crops will suffer even worse.
In contrast, natural areas have fared better. The sand prairie and savanna restoration in my backyard seem only slightly affected by the drought. Species such as black oak, pignut hickory, hazelnut, little bluestem grass, sand lovegrass, purple prairie clover, and white wild indigo are well adapted to dry, nutrient-poor conditions. These species, in fact, are survivors from the original prairies of Illinois that persisted for thousands of years against droughts and fires of magnitudes unimaginable in our current climate and domesticated landscape.
Yes, this year’s drought is bad, but it merely hints at the possibilities. Imagine a drought that could turn a forest into grassland.