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Ongoing drought threatens Western Corn Belt production outlook

An ag meteorologist says there’s no end in sight for on-going drought in the parts of the Western Corn Belt.

Eric Hunt with the University of Nebraska Lincoln says conditions for farmers and ranchers have been deteriorating  for several months.  “If you are in severe or extreme drought or really close to severe drought, this could be a really challenging growing season if we don’t get serious moisture by the first part of May.”

He tells Brownfield lack of winter precipitation, high winds and above normal temperatures have depleted soil profiles. “You don’t have the transpiration like you do in the summer, but you’re still getting soil evaporation. We’ve lost a lot of topsoil moisture, and we lost root zone moisture from evaporation in the last 3 or 4 months that we don’t normally lose.”

Hunt says there’s been a lack of snowfall and runoff from the Rocky Mountains that could impact southwest Nebraska and the Panhandle. “We may be looking at a season that we haven’t probably seen since the 50s or even possibly the 30s coming at us if we don’t see any moisture in the next couple of months.”

He says long-term precipitation models do indicate that there could be above normal moisture during the mid-to-late summer months.