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Climatologist says Missouri remains too cool and wet for planting

Missouri’s state climatologist says the state had usually warm temperatures at the end of 2021, and a roller coaster of temperatures to start 2022.

Pat Guinan says the winter jet stream often split the state leaving colder temperatures to the north and warmer temperatures in the south

Guinan tells Brownfield Missouri had a wet October, which helped recharge the soil profile, surface water supplies, and it helped grass growth before going dry again from November through January, but he says moisture levels are mostly good now. “February and March have been fairly wet, in fact statewide, we’ve seen some surpluses. Pretty much for the month of March, we had anywhere from four to five inches that were fairly common. They’re a little bit heavier in the southeast and drier in the northwest.”

As far as the Missouri planting season, Guinan says farmers need an opportunity to get into the fields. “If anything, I think producers probably want a little respite from the rain and because obviously, we want to get out in the field and prepare it for planting. We’re getting into the middle part of April already and there has already been some planting in southeastern Missouri but we’ve got to dry these conditions out first.”

But Guinan says it will be nice to have that moisture in the soil before the growing season, but the recent cool and wet period has kept soil temperatures lower longer. “They do have drier soils up in the northwest corner of the state but overall, we’re pretty wet. The soil profile has a lot of soil moisture and it goes down pretty deep.”