Farmers in many parts of the Midwest are again dealing with drought as they harvest corn and soybeans.
Climatologists say dry conditions sprung up quickly in late summer, when rain stopped falling ahead of harvest. The dryness follows above-normal spring and summer rainfall in some parts of the region.
Much of Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio are in moderate to severe drought, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center. Small parts of Missouri and Ohio are in extreme drought conditions.
Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe declared a drought alert in the state on Sept. 23, which allows state agencies to direct resources to people impacted.
Austin Pearson is the climatologist for the Midwestern Regional Climate Center based out of Purdue University in Indiana. He says that the region’s going to need a lot more rain to get out of these dry conditions.
“It's going to take quite a bit to get us out of this ongoing drought scenario, especially with how fast it came on,” Pearson said.
He said some parts of Indiana are 10 inches below normal precipitation levels this year. Currently, more than 90% of Indiana is in a state of dry or drought conditions.
Josh Boxell is a sixth-generation farmer in Indiana, about an hour outside of Indianapolis. He grows corn and soybeans, and even though the drier conditions haven’t been impacting his yields too much so far, he’s been particularly concerned about fires and uneven harvesting across his fields.
“The [soy]beans that we've been cutting have been yielding well,” he said. “But they have been very uneven across the field... So, there's some concerns like that. You can see the risks coming, and you do your best to mitigate them.”
Corn holds up okay in drought before harvest. Less rain helps to dry down the crops while they’re already in the field. That means farmers won’t have to spend the time or money drying it themselves.
But soybeans are more susceptible to dryness. They can mature unevenly in the field, and that could mean extra work for farmers preparing the beans for sale. But farmers like Boxell do their best to prepare for unfavorable conditions.
"We plant different maturities to try to help spread our risk,” Boxell said. “Depending on the weather to at least hit some averages on yields. So, some of our corn and [soy]beans are going to catch more rain than others, and we just hope it all, in the end, averages out and we can have a decent crop.”
Boxell said his farming neighbors are primarily concerned about the risk of fires in their fields. Hot harvest machinery, a backyard burn or a cigarette butt could spark fires that, especially when the wind blows, can be devastating. There have been reports of field fires in Illinois and a combine fire in Wisconsin in the past week.
Besides row crop farmers, livestock producers are some of the hardest hit in drought periods.
Zack Leasor is the Missouri state climatologist. He said livestock pastures have dried out and some watering pools are at some of the lowest levels producers have seen in decades. Leasor said producers are dipping into their winter hay stocks, which is fine for now, but could spell trouble later on.
“They're not worried about running out of hay supply this winter,” Leasor said, “But it's a situation where they're going to need to be clear and free of drought by next spring, or else they might have some concerns if we were still seeing drought in the spring.”
Ongoing drought conditions
These fall-time drought conditions are starting to become common in the region.
Illinois State Climatologist Trent Ford emphasized that no two droughts are alike, but experts can start to tease out some patterns.
“What most climate assessments have shown is that we see an increase in these acute, short term, but potentially impactful drought events, especially across the kind of central and eastern Midwest,” Ford said.
Year-over-year droughts can act like a snowball effect. Ford said that if there’s not enough precipitation in the winter or spring, the troubles from the year before can be exasperated in the following year.
Pearson emphasized that low humidity and high temperatures can also mean whatever rain does fall dries up quickly. He called it a seesaw effect. That’s when the region will see some improvement with a shower or two, but it can quickly be undone.
“You get maybe an inch of rain in a certain week, and it just makes it into the first couple of inches of the soil profile,” Pearson said. “Once you start looking down at deeper depths, you start seeing lack of soil moisture down low.”
Ford pointed out that parts of southeast Missouri, western Kentucky and southern Illinois are in severe to extreme drought, even though they were experiencing nearly a record-breaking wet year through June.
“It takes months to get into a drought. It usually takes weeks to months to get out of a drought,” Ford said. “So, if you get one big rainfall, it's not going to get us out of drought, but it can make a dent. What we'd like to see is three to four or five months of consistently wetter conditions.”
The National Weather Service predicts below-normal precipitation for much of the region in its 30-day outlook.
This story was produced in partnership with Harvest Public Media, a collaboration of public media newsrooms in the Midwest and Great Plains. It reports on food systems, agriculture and rural issues.
