failed harvest
Ruined growing season
A failed harvest is a growing season that produces little or no usable crop, typically due to drought, flood, frost, pests, or disease.
The phrase often appears in historical contexts discussing famine and migration: The failed harvest of 1845 triggered the Irish potato famine.
Figuratively, any effort that yields nothing despite investment: Years of research ended in a failed harvest of data.
- droughtProlonged water scarcity
- famineSevere food shortage
- dust bowlErosion-ravaged drought zone
- blightPlant disease causing decay
- witheredDried and shrunken
barren · crops · scorched earth · hunger · starvation · locust · frost · scorched · wilted · parched · ruin · desperate · grain · wheat · fields · soil · poverty · dust
- farm disasterscrop blight, drought, locust plague, locust swarm, livestock disease
- Droughtwater shortage, dry spell, dry spells, no rain, low rainfall
- rural declinedepopulation, rural exodus, brain drain, outmigration, dying towns