Ag Weather Forum

We're now nearing the middle of summer and usually that means talk of drought somewhere in the United States. That is still true this year, but for fewer areas and some less-important agricultural areas.

The U.S. Drought Monitor still has large areas of the country in drought. But the areas and the momentum of that drought are important. The Southwest has been in drought and largely deepening for the majority of the year so far. But drought elsewhere throughout the country is less intense.

The only other area currently undergoing widespread drought increases is in the Pacific Northwest. Some rain fell there last week, but overall, they have been on a very dry stretch for quite some time now and conditions continue to worsen this week and next.

Temperatures increasing into the 90s Fahrenheit and sometimes the 100s during the next two weeks with little or likely no rainfall should continue that trend into drought development for the rest of July and probably into August as well for the area. The PNW is one of the most diversified agricultural areas in the country --- Washington has more than 300 different ag commodities, Oregon more than 220 and Idaho more than 185. This area is also an important wheat-producing area.

Much of the PNW that grows winter wheat is maturing and undergoing the early stages of harvest, so the increasing heat should actually help wheat to dry down and be harvested. But for spring wheat, these areas are still in reproductive-to-filling stages. Montana is still behind with only 43% of the crop headed, as of the latest statistics from USDA NASS. Good-to-excellent ratings in the report have continually slipped in recent weeks and those rated poor or very poor are increasing, taking some production with them.

The spring wheat crop is still in fair shape farther east in the Northern Plains. Despite some moderate drought scattered throughout the Dakotas and northern Minnesota, ratings for the crops here are still rather good. These areas of drought have been more of a hangover from last fall and winter, when the area was mired with long-standing moderate to severe drought. An active weather pattern during the spring and nearing the middle of summer helped boost topsoil moisture in many places, but it hasn't been enough to eliminate the long-term deficits in some areas, hence why drought still exists in this area.

Nebraska has been an extreme case of that as drought started to creep into the state last July and became very stout over the fall and winter. Heading into the current growing season, almost the entire state was in some form of drought, including large areas of the north with severe or extreme (D2 to D3) drought. The rains picked up in May, though, and haven't looked back -- now only small portions of the state have issues with topsoil moisture. Those long-term deficits remain in a lot of the state though, and far southern areas could still be considered in drought. But with June and July usually becoming drier in this part of the country, it has been interesting to see drought decreasing in the summer instead of increasing.

The same goes for large portions of the Southern Plains, Midwest and Southeast, all areas that tend to see areas continually miss out on thunderstorms and dip into drought. But currently, there are very few areas in these regions undergoing harsh soil moisture conditions. For those across the South, excess water has been more of an issue than too little.

But there is an important part of the Midwest that has seen its share of drier conditions. The northern half of Illinois and Indiana, and parts of Lower Michigan and northwest Ohio, have not had the same active weather that other areas of the Corn Belt, South and East have been seeing. These are some prime agricultural lands and ones to focus on for drought development. Small sections of these areas already are classified as being in drought, as they have seen less than 50% of normal precipitation during the last 30 days. Though they haven't been completely dry, the rainfall has not been able to keep up with crop needs.

Reports of "pineapple" corn, where leaves curl up to conserve water and make the plant look like the top of a pineapple, have been increasing in the region and crop conditions have been slipping. Though the coming weather pattern does favor some precipitation in this region through the next 10 days, it is not the above-normal soaking rains that the region needs. It is more of the scattered thunderstorm type that may bring less than a half inch and could continue the trend of poorer weather conditions as more of the corn and soybean crops enter pollination.

But, when viewed as a whole, the area of concern is smaller this year than it is in most years. This is the time of year where rainfall is dominated by passing thunderstorms that bring heavy rains through only once in a while and end up missing a lot of other areas. Typically, July is a month where drought tends to increase across the country; but so far, that is limited to just some smaller areas in the Midwest. Though important, it is having a much smaller effect than previous years. The good-to-excellent corn condition rating of 74% is the highest since 2018 for this point in the season. Soybeans are slightly lower at 66% but holding steady and still in rather good shape as a whole.

There is still a lot of time for both crops to endure poor weather conditions, however. Pollination has only begun and continues to increase throughout July. August is the most important month for soybeans as they need moisture to fill their pods. So, while weather conditions are currently favorable and concerns are minimal, the weather can still turn around and cause issues for production. And spring wheat conditions in the Pacific Northwest continue to trend downward. The weather situation there only looks to get worse, not better, during the coming weeks.

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John Baranick can be reached at john.baranick@dtn.com

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