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Corn Belt farmers see additional drought expansion

A climatologist says drought conditions continue to expand across the Corn Belt.

“In contrast to all that we heard from the Southeast, we’ve gone completely the opposite way,” said Dennis Todey, director of USDA’s Midwest Climate Hub.

Todey says the ongoing dryness should give farmers many consecutive days to harvest their crops. “We’re going to be able to move along quickly as long as crops are maturing enough, and probably between the heat and a lack of rainfall crops that were not quite mature are probably going to get moving along.”

He tells Brownfield he’s concerned about the severity of drought in southeastern Ohio. “That part of Ohio and West Virginia had not seen a D4 on the U.S. Drought Monitor ever. Drought monitor started in 2000, and we had not seen that severe of drought coverage in that area.”

Todey says it will be important to monitor water levels along the Mississippi River moving forward.

INTERVIEW: Dennis Todey with USDA’s Midwest Climate Hub