The Green Bay Packers organization and its fans bid farewell to long-time President and CEO Mark Murphy on Friday at the team's annual shareholder meeting.
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Watch the entire episode of Here & Now for July 18.
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UW-Madison Extension is ending its 30-year-old FoodWIse nutrition education program and laying off more than 90 people after losing a federal grant.
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Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley says he's planning to enter a growing field of Democrats running for the first open seat for Wisconsin governor since 2010.
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A plan to repair Milwaukee’s Mitchell Park Domes received a key funding commitment from Milwaukee County.
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Less than a day after Gov. Tony Evers announced he will not seek a third term in office, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez officially launched her campaign for governor.
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From left, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley will look to run for governor in the 2026 Democratic primary, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez announced her campaign Friday and Attorney General Josh Kaul declined to comment on his plans. (Photos by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Less than 24 hours after Gov. Tony Evers announced he wouldn’t run for another term in office, the field for the Democratic primary for governor is beginning to take shape as Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez launched her campaign Friday morning while other potential candidates are still considering.
Evers’ video announcing that he would retire because of his family ended months of speculation about a potential third term and triggered the start of the first open race for governor in Wisconsin since 2010.
The Republican field is still shaping up, with Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann and Whitefish Bay manufacturer Bill Berrien have officially announced. Other potential candidates include U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany and businessmen Eric Hovde and Tim Michels, both of whom have recently lost statewide campaigns.
The first Democrat in the race, Rodriguez in her campaign launch video took aim both at Republicans in Washington and at the GOP majority in the Legislature.
“We’ve got a maniac in the White House. His tariffs are killing our farmers and his policies are hurting our kids,” Rodriguez said of President Donald Trump. “Our [state] Legislature refuses to expand Medicaid, even though 41 other states have done it. I mean Arkansas expanded Medicaid. Arkansas, but not Wisconsin. I’ll get it done.”
Rodriguez was elected lieutenant governor in 2022, when Evers won his second term. She succeeded former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who ran an unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. Senate against Republican Sen. Ron Johnson that year.
“I’ve been an ER nurse, a public health expert and a small business owner. I’m used to being on my feet and getting right to the point,” Rodriguez said in her video. “I have an announcement: I’m running for governor.”
“I know what you’re thinking, you don’t have the time for the rest of this video,” Rodriguez said. “Look, I get it I’m a busy parent too, so here’s what you should know: I’ve got two kids that are way too embarrassed to be in this video, a dog named Chico and I met my husband salsa dancing – all true. My parents were Wisconsin dairy farmers. My dad served during Vietnam and fixed telephones at Wisconsin Bell. Mom was a union member who helped kids with special needs.”
Rodriguez got degrees in neuroscience and nursing before working as a nurse in an emergency room in Baltimore. She has also worked for the Centers for Disease Control and has served as vice president for several health care-related businesses, including at Advocate Aurora Health from 2017-2020.
Rodriguez said in the video that entering politics wasn’t part of her plan, but seeing “a broken system” she decided to run for the Assembly. She flipped a Republican seat that covered parts of Milwaukee and Waukesha in 2020 by 735 votes, and served for one term before making her run for lieutenant governor in 2021. After winning the Democratic primary, she joined Evers on the ticket.
The Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association quickly endorsed Rodriguez Friday.
Rodriguez noted that control of the state Legislature is also at stake in 2026, with Democrats having the chance under new, fairer maps adopted in 2024 to win control. The last time there was a Democratic trifecta in Wisconsin was in the 2009-2010 session.
“Look, we’ve got a real shot at flipping the state Legislature, and with a Democratic governor we can finally expand Medicaid and boost our health care workforce. We can strengthen our farms and unions and small businesses, fund our public schools and give teachers the raise they’ve earned. That’s the right path, and it’s what you and your family deserve,” Rodriguez said. “I can’t wait to earn your vote.”
Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said in a statement Friday morning that he cares about the future direction of Wisconsin and that “I will be taking steps toward entering the race for Governor,” in the coming weeks.
“The stakes are simply too high to sit on the sidelines,” Crowley said. “Governor Evers has laid a strong foundation. I believe it’s our responsibility to build on that progress — and I look forward to engaging in that conversation with the people of Wisconsin.”
Crowley, 33, was elected to the county’s top office in 2020, the first African American and the youngest person to serve in the position. During his time in the job, Crowley has been a staunch advocate for the state’s largest county, including helping secure a sales tax increase for Milwaukee. He also previously served for two terms in the state Assembly.
Asked whether she plans to run, state Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison) told the Wisconsin Examiner Friday she is “giving it really serious consideration.” Roys came in third in the 2018 primary that nominated Evers.
“This is going to be a wide open primary,” Roys said. “I don’t think anybody has a strong advantage in it, and I think the stakes are incredibly high.”
Roys said she thought Evers has “given more than anyone could ask to this state” and has earned the right to do whatever he wants. She said, however, that Democrats shouldn’t rely on old tactics in 2026 and that people want a candidate who will inspire them.
“Tony Evers has been a beloved governor of this state, and so I think he would have certainly been able to win a third term if that’s what he wanted to do,” Roys said. “At the same time, I think that there is a real hunger in the party and in the country generally, to see the next generation of leaders getting a chance, and we have a very strong bench in Wisconsin.”
Roys also ran for the U.S. House in 2012, losing in the primary for the 2nd District to U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan.
Roys said that there is a lot at stake in the 2026 race. The country is at an “incredibly dangerous moment” with the Republican control in Washington, D.C., she said, and Wisconsin Democrats could have a “incredible opportunity” to deliver on an array of issues at the state level, including funding public education, supporting Wisconsin’s public universities and technical colleges, expanding access to health care, addressing the high cost of housing and child care, and protecting peoples’ rights and freedoms.
For the last five years, Roys has served in the state Senate, including as a member of the Joint Finance Committee, and has been a strong advocate for funding child care and reproductive rights.
Recalling her time in the Assembly from 2009-2013, including the last session when Democrats held a trifecta, Roys said Democrats didn’t accomplish enough.
“I’m determined to make sure that we do not blow this opportunity,” Roys said. “I think we need strong leadership from our next Democratic governor to make sure that we deliver for people in this state.”
Roys said she is considering many factors in deciding whether to join the race, including whether she would be the right person for the position, her recent experience and her family, including their security.
Whether she runs or not, Roys said she will work across the state to help Democrats flip both houses. She isn’t up for reelection this year and Democrats have set a goal of winning control of the Senate and Assembly for the first time in over 15 years.
“My hope is that all the candidates who are considering a run for governor are prioritizing flipping the Legislature,” Roys said. During Evers’ two terms with a Republican majority in both houses, “He wrote great budgets. They threw them in the garbage,” she said. “He wanted to pass a lot of great legislation that Democrats offered in the Legislature, and he could hardly sign many into law, because he was busy with that veto pen.”
Attorney General Josh Kaul, who would likely be a top candidate if he runs, declined to tell reporters about his plans Friday, saying that it is important to reflect on Evers’ service and “the significance of where we’ve come in the last six and a half years.”
“I don’t have any announcement today,” Kaul said. “I think in the next several weeks, you’ll hear from a number of people as to where they stand.”
Kaul was first elected to the statewide position in 2018 and won a second term in 2022 in a close race against Eric Toney, a Republican prosecutor from Fond du Lac County. Since Trump took office for his second term, Kaul has joined several multistate lawsuits to push back on some of the federal government’s actions, including the withholding of funding
Other potential candidates include Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson and former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes.
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The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a lower court's order blocking President Donald Trump's birthright citizenship order from going into effect nationwide, despite a recent U.S. Supreme Court striking down another nationwide ruling. (Photo by Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court dealt a setback for President Donald Trump’s offensive to end birthright citizenship, even after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the lower courts to avoid overly broad immigration rulings. The decision likely sets the stage for the high court to again hear arguments related to the constitutional right for babies born on U.S. soil.
Judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit issued a 2-1 decision late Wednesday declaring Trump’s policy unconstitutional. The ruling upheld a lower court’s nationwide injunction against the controversial order.
The original complaint was brought by Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon over the economic hardship states would bear if birthright citizenship was stripped from the Constitution.
Writing the majority opinion, Judge Ronald M. Gould affirmed the district court rightly made its ruling nationwide, despite the recent Supreme Court decision.
“The district court below concluded that a universal preliminary injunction is necessary to provide the States with complete relief,” Gould wrote. “We conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in issuing a universal injunction in order to give the States complete relief.”
An injunction covering only the states that challenged the order would be impractical because migrants covered by the order would inevitably move between states, Gould, who was appointed by Democratic former President Bill Clinton, continued, explaining that states would then need to overhaul verification for numerous social safety net programs.
“For that reason, the States would suffer the same irreparable harms under a geographically-limited injunction as they would without an injunction,” he wrote.
Judge Michael D. Hawkins, also a Clinton appointee, joined the majority opinion.
In a dissent, Judge Patrick J. Bumatay, appointed to the bench by Trump in 2019, wrote that courts must be “vigilant in enforcing the limits of our jurisdiction and our power to order relief. Otherwise, we risk entangling ourselves in contentious issues not properly before us and overstepping our bounds.”
The U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond for comment.
The decision comes less than two weeks after a district judge in New Hampshire issued a preliminary injunction blocking Trump’s policy to end birthright citizenship and granted a class certification to infants who would be affected by the order.
The suit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of immigrants whose babies would be affected by the order shortly after the Supreme Court narrowed lower courts’ abilities to impose nationwide orders.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority issued the 6-3 decision on June 27 after the justices reviewed three cases consolidated into one that brought together plaintiffs from Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin. The District of Columbia and the county and city of San Francisco also joined.
The justices ruled that Trump’s directive to end birthright citizenship can go into effect within 30 days of their ruling in all non-plaintiff states.
The Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education Building in Washington, D.C., in a file photo from November 2024. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration said Friday it’ll soon release billions in Education Department funding that has been frozen for weeks, delaying disbursements to K-12 schools throughout the country.
The funding — which goes toward migrant education, English-language learning and other programs — was supposed to go out before July 1, but the administration informed schools just one day before that it was instead holding onto $6.8 billion while staff conducted a review. Members of both parties in Congress objected to the move.
The Education Department released $1.3 billion for before- and after-school programs as well as summer programs in mid-July, but the rest of the funding remained stalled.
Madi Biedermann, a Department of Education spokesperson, wrote in an email to States Newsroom that the White House budget office “has completed its review” of the remaining accounts and “has directed the Department to release all formula funds.”
The administration will begin sending that money to school districts next week, Biedermann wrote.
Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, wrote in a statement the “funds are essential to the operation of Maine’s public schools, supporting everything from classroom instruction to adult education.”
“I am pleased that following outreach from my colleagues and me, the Administration has agreed to release these highly-anticipated resources,” Collins wrote. “I will continue working to ensure that education funds are delivered without delay so that schools have adequate time to plan their finances for the upcoming school year, allowing students to arrive back to class this fall to properly-funded schools.”
Collins and nine other Republican senators wrote a letter to Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought earlier this month asking him to “faithfully implement” the spending law Congress approved in March.
“The decision to withhold this funding is contrary to President (Donald) Trump’s goal of returning K-12 education to the states,” the GOP senators wrote. “This funding goes directly to states and local school districts, where local leaders decide how this funding is spent, because as we know, local communities know how to best serve students and families.
“Withholding this funding denies states and communities the opportunity to pursue localized initiatives to support students and their families.”
West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, chairwoman of the appropriations subcommittee that funds the Education Department, wrote in a statement released Friday she was glad to see the funding unfrozen.
“The programs are ones that enjoy longstanding, bipartisan support like after-school and summer programs that provide learning and enrichment opportunities for school aged children, which also enables their parents to work and contribute to local economies, and programs to support adult learners working to gain employment skills, earn workforce certifications, or transition into postsecondary education,” Capito wrote. “That’s why it’s important we continue to protect and support these programs.”
Michael M. Bell, shown here in a promotional video for a documentary project about his son's death, is asking the Kenosha County district attorney to take a new look at the police shooting that killed his son. (Screenshot/via Michael Bell Facebook page. Used with permission)
The father of Michael E. Bell is asking the new Kenosha County district attorney to open a new investigation of Bell’s 2004 death at the hands of Kenosha police.
In a letter sent this week that arrived at the prosecutor’s office Thursday, Russell Beckman, a retired Kenosha Police Department detective, has asked the DA, Xavier Solis, to meet with Beckman and Bell’s father, Michael M. Bell.
Beckman has been working with the elder Bell for more than a decade to analyze the events on the night of the fatal shooting and challenge the official police account of the incident.
Their research has turned up “credible and well documented issues with the integrity of the investigation,” Beckman wrote. “There are multiple indications of a cover up of the true circumstances of the death by high level Kenosha police and government officials.”
The letter comes after a change in the administration in the DA’s office, and after years of conflict that Bell and Beckman have had with the previous DA, Michael Graveley.
After Graveley opposed an independent investigation of the case — and made claims about some of the evidence that Bell and Beckman disputed — they unsuccessfully sought legal sanctions against Graveley through the state Office of Lawyer Regulation.
Graveley, who served as DA for two terms, did not run for reelection in November 2024. His successor on the Democratic ticket, Carli McNeill, a veteran prosecutor in the DA’s office, lost to Solis, who ran as a Republican.
Michael E. Bell was fatally shot during a confrontation with police in the driveway of the home where he was living on Nov. 9, 2004. A Kenosha Police Department internal investigation exonerated all the officers involved within two days.
Officer Albert Gonzales shot the younger Bell at point-blank range after another officer at the scene shouted that he believed Bell had grabbed his gun.
The elder Bell sued the city, ultimately winning a settlement of $1.75 million in 2010. He subsequently campaigned for a state law requiring that police hand over investigations of deaths in their custody to another agency. The law was enacted in 2014.
Since the settlement of his lawsuit, Bell, with the assistance of Beckman and various technical consultants, has highlighted eyewitness testimony as well as physical evidence that contradict key details in the police department’s account of the events.
Because of those discrepancies, Bell and Beckman contend that the officer who thought his gun had been grabbed was mistaken, and that Gonzales was in a position to realize as much but fired his gun too hastily.
Gonzales, who ran unsuccessfully for sheriff in 2022 and has self-published his own account of the incident, has stood by the official police account.
In his letter to Solis, Beckman wrote, “I feel compelled to state that it is my belief that the actual shooting death of Mr. Bell’s son was legally justified, despite my concerns that it was not necessary.”
Nevertheless, Beckman charged in the letter, Kenosha police and city officials were responsible for “criminal acts committed to conceal the true circumstances of the death. I submit that this cover up started immediately after the shooting and continues to this day.”
Along with the letter, Beckman submitted a 95-page document outlining discrepancies and details that he and Bell have compiled to support their argument against the Kenosha Police Department description of the shooting and their claims of a willful coverup.
One discrepancy that Bell and Beckman found involves where various officers were standing during the confrontation in which Bell’s son was shot.
While the Kenosha Police account placed Gonzales on Bell’s son’s left side, with his gun pointing away from the house, eyewitness testimony and the medical examiner’s report indicated that Gonzales was on the young man’s right side, and his gun pointed toward the house.
That is a key difference that could demonstrate that the other officer who thought his gun was being taken was mistaken, Bell and Beckman contend.
“My son was being accused of trying to violently disarm an officer, and that he was the cause of his own death, according to the Kenosha PD,” Bell said Thursday.
“And that’s not the case. It was an accident,” he added, referring to the shooting. “But instead of coming back and saying it was an accident, they lied about it, and they discredit my son, and they discredit our family, and they discredited the law enforcement system. And so those things are really important to me.”
After Bell retrieved a sample of siding from the house several years later that included an indentation possibly from a bullet, he repeatedly sought the fatal bullet from the city of Kenosha, hoping to compare it to the indentation and support his and Beckman’s scenario of the incident.
As part of that campaign, Bell offered to donate $200,000 to charity and to indemnify the city in return for the bullet. City officials repeatedly rejected his appeal.
This past November, according to Bell and Beckman, they obtained records showing that an officer had signed out the bullet from the evidence material in 2007.
The officer did not document his reasons for doing so and did not disclose he had done so during a deposition in Bell’s lawsuit against the city that was underway at the time, they state in the appendix to the letter to Solis.
“That’s really a new finding,” Bell told the Wisconsin Examiner, raising additional questions about the police handling of the incident.
The Wisconsin Examiner contacted Solis by email and left a voicemail message Thursday seeking comment on his initial reaction to the letter. The DA has not yet responded.
Bell has begun working with a documentary filmmaker interested in producing a film about his case. He posted a promotional video for the project on Facebook Thursday and later on YouTube as well.
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The Trump administration is releasing billions of dollars in withheld grants for schools, the Education Department said Friday, ending weeks of uncertainty for educators around the country who rely on the money for English language instruction, adult literacy and other programs.
President Donald Trump’s administration had suspended more than $6 billion in funding on July 1, as part of a review to ensure spending aligned with the White House’s priorities.
While the majority of funding on hold was for K-12 education, federal dollars make up a greater share of the adult education budgets.
The withheld funding included $715 million nationwide for adult education and literacy programs, which help adults complete high school, learn English and improve their literacy skills, among other services. In Wisconsin, adult education providers and technical college leaders lamented the funding freeze earlier this month in interviews with Wisconsin Watch. In a state where 340,000 adults lack a high school diploma, they said the nearly $7 million in adult education funds promised to Wisconsin were crucial in efforts to bolster a thin workforce, and they warned canceled funding would prompt layoffs and program scale-backs.
The Wisconsin Technical College System applauded the Trump administration’s announcement on Friday.
“The system is glad the administration has decided to release the funds previously approved by Congress to fund adult education in Wisconsin,” Director of Strategic Advancement Katy Pettersen said in a statement. “The system and our colleges remain committed to providing education for all students, including those who are seeking adult education to help them find family supporting careers.”
The funding freeze had been challenged by several lawsuits as educators, Congress members from both parties and others called for the administration to release the money. Congress had appropriated the money in a bill signed this year by Trump.
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, was among leaders in 24 states suing the Trump administration over the frozen funds.
Last week, the Education Department said it would release $1.3 billion of the money for after-school and summer programming. Without the money, school districts and nonprofits such as the YMCA and Boys and Girls Club of America had said they would have to close or scale back educational offerings this fall.
The Office of Management and Budget had completed its review of the programs and will begin sending the money to states next week, the Education Department said.
A group of 10 Republican senators on July 16 sent a letter imploring the administration to allow the frozen education money to be sent to states, saying the withheld money supported programs and services that are critical to local communities.
“The programs are ones that enjoy long-standing, bipartisan support,” U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said Friday. She pointed to after-school and summer programs that allow parents to work while their children learn and classes that help adults gain new skills — contributing to local economies.
In withholding the funds, the Office of Management and Budget had said some of the programs supported a “radical leftwing agenda.”
“We share your concern,” the GOP senators had written. “However, we do not believe that is happening with these funds.”
School superintendents had warned they would have to eliminate academic services without the money. On Friday, AASA, an association of superintendents, thanked members of Congress for pressing to release the money.
The uncertainty around the funding was an unnecessary distraction for schools, said U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.
“Instead of spending the last many weeks figuring out how to improve after-school options and get our kids’ reading and math scores up, because of President Trump, communities across the country have been forced to spend their time cutting back on tutoring options and sorting out how many teachers they will have to lay off,” Murray said.
The grants that were under review included $2 billion in grants for teachers’ professional development and efforts to reduce class size; $1.3 billion for after-school and summer learning programs; $1 billion for academic enrichment grants, often used for science and math education and accelerated learning; $890 million for students who are learning English; $376 million to educate the children of migrant workers; and $715 million to teach adults how to read.
Miranda Dunlap of Wisconsin Watch reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
Trump’s Education Department says it will unfreeze billions in grant money for schools is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
A few years ago, Holly Jones started studying the micro-climate and the topography on her family farm in Crawfordsville, Iowa, about 40 miles south of Iowa City. Jones said learning more about the landscape of her fifth generation flower farm helped her recognize some of the ways weather and climate change could affect her operation.
“There are some areas of our land that are a little higher than others,” Jones said. “That’s going to impact, for example, when we’re looking out for frost advisories or frost concerns really early in the season or the end.”
Around this time, the U.S. Department of Agriculture updated its plant hardiness zones map, which divides the United States into 13 zones based on average annual minimum temperatures in a given time period.
Todd Einhorn, an associate professor in the Department of Horticulture at Michigan State University, said simply put plant hardiness zones help gardeners and farmers determine which plants are most likely to survive winters in a specific location.
Jones’ farm, called Evergreen Hill, is currently in zone 5b. The USDA found that for her area the temperature had increased by 1 degree Fahrenheit between 2012 and 2023 – a trend experts say will continue in the Upper Midwest.
In response to the changing climate and her deeper understanding of her land, Jones created “crossover plans” for the farm, planting flower varieties with overlapping bloom times. If one species is late to flower or runs its course early, she has other plants that can fill in as the farm’s “focal flower” at any given time.
Jones works to be transparent with customers about whether they can have certain flowers by a specific date when she takes orders.
She said she and her team have learned that they must be flexible when it comes to farming in a changing climate since she does not have control over growing conditions.
“We can prepare as much as we want, but there’s so much variability now in growing, especially in the ways that we grow that you just have to be prepared to pivot and adapt,” Jones said.
Jones won’t be the only one adapting.
Plant hardiness zones are shifting northward nationwide as the country continues to warm, affecting farmers, gardeners and producers across the country. The biggest changes in the coming decades are predicted to be in the Upper Midwest. The Midwest produces 27% of the nation’s agricultural goods.
The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone map has 13 zones, which serve as guidelines for growers on what kind of plants will grow well in their area.
“Hardiness zones are meant to at least delineate which species or cultivars of species could be planted based on their survival,” said Einhorn, who specializes in plant hardiness science, particularly with fruit tree species.
Each zone covers about 10 degrees — for example, Iowa lies primarily in zone 5, which means its coldest temperatures range from -20 degrees to -10 degrees Fahrenheit on average. Each zone is further divided into 5 degree half zones — the northern half of Iowa is in 5a, the southern half in 5b.
Madelynn Wuestenberg, an agricultural climatology extension specialist with Iowa State University, said that plant hardiness zones are defined by their average coldest temperatures. The averages are calculated over 30 years.
In 2023, using new averages, the USDA updated the map, moving about half of the country up by half a plant zone, meaning average minimum temperatures rose by zero to 5 degrees in the affected places.
Climate Central, a nonprofit researching climate change and how it affects people, analyzed 243 locations around the United States and found that about 67% of the locations studied based on National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data have already shifted to warmer planting zones from the mid-1900s to present.
The researchers found that the Northwest and the Southwest, along with Alaska, have been the most affected to date.
With unabated climate change about 90% of locations examined will likely shift to warmer planting zones by the middle of this century. The Upper Midwest is predicted to be affected most.
Wuestenberg said winter temperatures in the Midwest are becoming warmer on average, compared to decades past.
“What we saw from the 1981 to 2010 climatology versus the 1991 to 2020 climatology is we’re really starting to see warming across the U.S.,” Wuestenberg said. “And this has been observed for a long time, and really it’s a pretty consistent overall warming, but the specific amount of warming varies region to region across the U.S.”
Of the cities with the highest predicted temperature change between now and mid-century, a majority of the top 25 are in the Mississippi River Basin.
Madison, Wisconsin, for example, is projected to switch from zone 5b to 6a as the average coldest temperature is expected to increase by 8.4 degrees Fahrenheit.
Jefferson City, Missouri, will likely change from zone 6b to zone 7b as the area’s average cold temperatures are projected to increase by 8.3 degrees Fahrenheit.
In Dubuque, Iowa, the average coldest temperatures are expected to rise by 8.3 degrees Fahrenheit, and producers will go from zone 5a to 6a.
Average cold temperatures in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, are on course to warm by 8.2 degrees Fahrenheit, and the region is expected to jump an entire planting zone to 6a.
The shift in plant hardiness zones could force some growers across the country to select plants that are adapted to a wider and warmer range of temperatures to survive warmer winters and earlier frosts and thaws.
In some cases, that could mean new opportunities.
Dean Colony runs Colony Acres Family Farm in North Liberty, Iowa. On his 200-acre farm, he grows pumpkins, corn, soybeans and zinnias.
His farm is currently in plant hardiness zone five, but Colony said it could be a matter of time before Iowa is able to produce peaches like Missouri and Kentucky can.
“How many more years is it going to be? I mean, we could grow peaches in Iowa, but it seems like they grow them way better down there,” Colony said. “So is it a matter of time before that comes here?”
Wuestenberg said one challenge with the shifting zones is that they are based on climatological averages and do not take atypical and significant frost or freeze events into account, which can be challenging for producers.
Wuestenberg said gardeners and fruit tree producers will likely be more concerned about the shifting zones, rather than row crop producers.
Fruit trees and vines need a certain number of chilling hours, which is the minimum period of cold weather a fruit tree needs to blossom.
For example, Einhorn said most apple trees require about a thousand chilling hours in the winter to break their dormancy period and bloom in the spring.
But with winters warming, even by a few degrees, apple trees will want to break dormancy earlier.
“Instead of being at 30 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter, maybe now the days are at 34 (degrees Fahrenheit) and that little bit of warming actually has a humongous effect on a tree,” Einhorn said.
The apple trees could start flowering in late February or early March.
“Unfortunately, what can happen is overall, winter may have been warmer, but we still might get a March, April frost. And once that happens, those buds, those flowers, are exposed to that cold temperature, and then it kills them,” Wuestenberg said.
This could lead to reduced fruit yields later in the season.
But Einhorn said there are ways that producers can work within the unpredictable conditions.
For example, there are various methods for raising temperatures for trees during a freeze, including using fans to pull warm air out of the atmosphere and running water over plants. There are also research efforts underway breeding new plants that have either delayed blooms or can withstand the new conditions.
Meanwhile, farmers will continue to adapt. Jones, the flower farmer, has noticed strong winds and storms coming through the eastern Iowa region. She’s planted sunflowers in windier areas of the farm because they can withstand stronger gusts. More delicate flowers go near trees for natural protection. She also uses netting to help stabilize flowers from winds, rains and storms.
“At the end of the season, we’re at the mercy of our climate and the weather,” Jones said. “And that can greatly impact what we have in any given season.”
This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri in partnership with Report for America, with major funding from the Walton Family Foundation.
Wisconsin Watch is a member of the Ag & Water Desk network. Sign up for our newsletters to get our news straight to your inbox.
A warming climate is changing growing conditions, shifting planting zones northward is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
The Beloit Buccaneers have replaced their swashbuckling, Errol Flynn-esque design from the 1970s with a new, grinning skeleton pirate logo.
The post Beloit College leader highlights the school’s first new athletics logo in more than 40 years appeared first on WPR.
Democrats are escalating an effort to capitalize on a Republican rift about documents related to financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The post Democrats bring ‘Epstein files’ demands to Wisconsin swing districts in new ads appeared first on WPR.
Waukesha-based Generac Power Systems unveiled the company’s newest and largest manufacturing facility in Wisconsin on Thursday in Beaver Dam.
The post Generac unveils its newest, largest manufacturing facility in Wisconsin appeared first on WPR.
Wisconsin's political world was turned upside down Thursday by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers' announcement that he won't seek a third term in office.
The post As Tony Evers retires, possible candidates emerge for Wisconsin governor’s race appeared first on WPR.
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