Fundamentally Speaking

For many of the top corn and soybean states the month of September has been quite dry, good for harvest but unfavorable for the late developing crops in terms of adding weight to corn kernels and soybean pods.

For a number of these states, this continues the trend of below average precipitation for not only the month of August but for the whole meteorological summer which is June through August.

This chart shows the percent of the 1895-2023 average August and total June through August precipitation for the top 21 corn and soybean producing states on the left-hand axis while the rank of where each state stands for both August and cumulative June-August precipitation is plotted on the right hand-axis.

A rank of 1 means that either August or the June-August rainfall was the wettest since 1895 while a rank of 129 means that either August or the June-August rainfall was the driest since 1895.

This year it seems that some of the more northern and southern states were quite parched with states in the middle doing somewhat better.

Much of the southern U.S. has baked this summer with high temperatures and a paucity of rainfall and nowhere is that truer in Louisiana where their 1.27 inches of rain last month the lowest total ever since record started being kept in 1895, while their total June-August precipitation of 8.18 inches the third lowest ever.

After getting decent rains in June and July, Mississippi's 1.86 inches of rain last month was their fourth lowest August total ever, suggesting the soybean crop in the Delta did not finish well at all.

Texas was also quite dry with August rainfall the seventh lowest ever and total summer precipitation the sixth lowest.

Moving toward the northern part of the country, both Minnesota and Wisconsin had their fourth lowest June-August rainfall ever and Iowa had their 13th lowest to the detriment of both the corn and soybean crops in that part of the Midwest.

Interesting to note that Missouri had their sixth wettest August ever, but this comes after a very dry June and August while the best rainfall appears to have been in the Eastern Corn Belt states of Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania with both Kentucky and Tennessee doing well in that regard also.

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