For the past month, inconsistent rain has fallen across the state of Wisconsin, causing drought conditions to worsen and crops to emerge unevenly.
Wisconsin Farm Bureau president Kevin Krentz says small pockets of variable rain have fallen in the state. Near his dairy and crop farm in Berlin, Wisconsin he’s seen as much as a foot difference between crops growing in the same field.
According to the July 3 Crop Progress report, the state has received scattered storms as the calendar turned to July, helping crop conditions improve. However, those storms brought very little moisture to some counties, which continues to impact crops.
“There’s some parts of the state where the crops really look good,” but there’s also, “more corn curled this week than I’ve seen in a long time,” Krentz adds.
The latest drought monitor map for Wisconsin shows that the entire state is experiencing drought stress. Nearly 3% of the state is in a D3 extreme drought and almost 25% is facing D2 severe drought conditions. The majority of the state, just over 65%, is in a D1 moderate drought, while just over 7% of the land is abnormally dry.
When it comes time to harvest his crops, Krentz says that the inconsistencies are going to greatly impact his yields, as well as cause quality concerns when it comes to storing the grain. “When you’re harvesting it for grain, especially for dry corn, we have to be very selective about what gets taken to the co-op,” Krentz says. “There’ll be dollars taken off if it’s not quality standard.”
Inconsistent grain quality will also negatively affect his dairy cattle’s milk production.
Shane Goplin, a corn, soybean and alfalfa farmer in Osseo, Wisconsin, says that the dry weather affected his operation from mid-May to mid-June, but, since Father’s Day, his crops have been lucky to receive close to 2 inches of rain.
Goplin says that they received an inch of rain on the 4th of July, with no rain in the forecast for the coming week.
“Right now it’s really the story of who’s under the rain cloud at what time,” Goplin says. While his crops are doing well right now, he says that just 7 miles down the road, “there was a crop that was burning up.”
Source: agriculture.com
Photo Credit: gettyimages-sinartcreative
Categories: Wisconsin, Government & Policy