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UNL climatologist assesses current crop conditions

A climatologist says growing conditions have been favorable across most areas of the Corn Belt.

“Generally speaking, most of the Corn Belt has remained drought-free for the entire summer,” said Eric Hunt with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Hunt says precipitation has been above average the last 90 days in several key U.S. growing states. “We actually had quite a bit of thunderstorm activity from Iowa into Illinois and parts of Indiana. A lot of this area was pretty wet. As a matter of fact, I think there were places in southern Illinois that had their wettest July on record.”

But he says some farmers in Nebraska and Kansas haven’t been as fortunate. “We’re definitely starting to see signs of (crop) stress here across portions of Kansas and southeast Nebraska where we haven’t been particularly wet the last month or so.”

Hunt says short-term outlooks show elevated chances of precipitation the next few weeks across the Midwest and Plains.