Word: montana
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...drought-weary farmers in the West, hot weather and high winds have brought another threat to this year's dwindling crop. Hordes of Russian wheat aphids, which thrive on dry wheat and barley fields, are rampaging through 15 Western states, from California and Arizona to Montana. The tiny stalk suckers (size: 0.1 in.) have nearly wiped out harvests in some fields. The bugs are natives of the Soviet Union, Iran and Afghanistan, but were transplanted to Mexico by unknown means in 1980 and have been moving north ever since. Last year the insects caused $36 million in damage across...
...owners of the teams, though, are another story. All across the U.S., well-to-do baseball buffs are eager to buy up clubs with names like the Memphis Chicks, Montana's Butte Copper Kings and the Toledo Mud Hens. These new barons of the bush leagues may not have gained the visibility of a George Steinbrenner or a Ted Turner, but they are having plenty of fun and making good money to boot. With minor-league attendance at 20 million last year, up 25% since 1981, owning a team has become not only a fulfillment of a boyhood fantasy...
...showers were far from enough to break what meteorologists describe as the most devastating dry spell in 50 years. If the drought stretches through the summer, its economic effects could prove as far-reaching as a cloudless Montana sky. Any sizable increase in inflation is still remote, but a persistent drought could bring higher prices for products ranging from cherries to Christmas trees, breakfast cereal to beer. While farmers fortunate enough to have a healthy crop will enjoy the windfall of higher prices this year, the shriveled overall yield could reduce U.S. agricultural exports in the long run by losing...
...winter-wheat harvest escaped the effects of the drought. But the spring- wheat crop in a belt from Montana to Minnesota, which accounts for one- fourth of the year's total harvest, may amount to only 250 million bu. That is less than half of last year's level. Result: consumers are likely to pay higher prices for pasta, much of which is made from the northern durum wheat. Should the drought persist through the summer, the same will hold true for soybean- based foods, which range from trendy tofu to salad dressing...
...mountain states and along the West Coast, record temperatures have brought the fire season in two months early. Montana has suffered through more than a dozen significant forest and range fires this month, including a 23,000-acre burn on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation. Brush and desert fires have blackened more than 8,000 acres in California, Idaho, Washington and Utah. Forest fires may be the most immediate of California's water problems, but the long-range crisis of a huge, thirsty population competing for limited supplies of water dramatically raises fundamental questions about life and land in the Golden...