O/T How far north has the drought gone?

The dry weather from Texas and Kansas has hit us here in NW Iowa. We haven't had an appreciable rain since July. Last measureable rain was .3" the last of August. It didn't hurt the crops much but if we don't get any good rain in a couple of weeks before it freezes we'll be in a world of hurt next year. How far north into Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota has it come? Eastern Iowa has had a little more rain.

The implement dealers around here have sold a lot of parts to replace the broken ones for V ripers and disk rippers because of the hard ground. Jim

Jim, I am in south central Mn. Nicollet County. It is very dry here as well. Corn really suffered as a result. We normally get 180 to 220 bpa. This year around 140.

I'm in the thumb of Michigan, and we're too darn wet! Not a ton, but enough rain to prevent a lot of fall tillage and combining the last of the corn if you don't have a monster 4wd combine.

Pretty dry here, 90 miles south east of Fargo ND on the Mn side. One real rain sense late Aug.

Rick

Ohio and the Cleveland TV station says we broke the all time rain fall record. And that was last month and we just had another BIG bunch of rain yesterday.

WET WET year.

Right there with you, corn was doing 'ok' until I got to the lastbig field in lower ground, thought that would do well but the cold wet wet spring hurt it, couldn't recover with the ultra dry fall, so corn yields down - can't just be me, typically pressed for storage at the elevators, don't see any grain piled around here at all. And I had done tiling and grid soil sampling last year and fertilized for an extra 20 bu an acre... Instead got 20-40 bu less.

Beans were also pretty disappointing, but they were on my poor ground, they dried out in August can't expect much that way.

Put in more tile last week, and grid sampled another 1/3 of the farm, let's go for next year.

--->Paul

It is really dry in western MN, last decent rain was in august when we got 3/4 inch , nothing but a sprinkle since. We hope for 2-4 slow inches before freeze up, but I don't see that happening. I have never seen it this dry , and I am 55.

I am not going to pretend that we haven't had any
rain at all here in southern MO, because we have. In
fact, we've had a couple of heavy storms. Still,
compared to a normal autumn, it seems we are rather
short on the wet stuff overall.

Christopher

sw of lincoln ne; i'd call this fall normal.

Dry dry dry. 30 miles north east of Fargo. Not complaining
though...usually a nasty wet clayey mess in the fall. Might
get crops in on time next spring.

My corn was down maybe 5 bushels on the normal ground but it was up about 20 bushels on the field I call my 'Florida Swamp Land' so I can't complain. Beans were down from 3 to 30 bushels in this area because of the early frost. My beans were down 6 bu so I can't complain about that either. A lot of corn blew over here because of small weak, stressed stalks. Corn reels were a hot item. Jim

Still wet up here, in July and August the longest spell without precip was 2 days. My ruts from haying still have standing water in them.

N/W WI here... some guys are dry, but I got my TW35
fwa stuck 4 times while chopping corn. I -think- I
could plow those spots now. lots of corn and beans
around here show stunted areas where water sat at
various times this summer. The gravel ridge in the
field I'm combining now is probably the best part of
that field this year.

Dryest Sep on record ever for SD. 2.0 inches of rain total from 1 Aug til today.

Who has tile? My tiler can"t find enough. Figured he might get one semi, needs four. I need about 6000 feet, mostly six inch.

Pretty dry all the way to the Canadian border, our well at the farm is about 4 ft down to the water. it usually overflows an outlet thats about knee high.

Was dry here since the last of July. About 10 mile north of me they got some good rains and heard some say the best beans and corn ever raised. Here corn here made 35 bushel. Week ago today got about 3 inches and came nice. A neighbor said he had a half inch since August 15 till now. Our area is suppose to receive around 35 inches a year.

In SW Ontario we're about normal. Nothing crazy but enough that the ground doesn't really dry up.

Normal in Eastern Iowa

here in SE PA, we've had about 15 inches of rain since late August + 8" snow 2 weeks ago. Today temps hit 70 deg. We went 6 weeks with no rain in June-July. Weather like a roller coaster.

We don't need any moisture here plus we got 4 to 6 inches of wet snow last night. Some normal fields haven't been farmed for three years or more. Want to buy a gazillion cat tails?

I am on the coast of S.C. Planted oats three weeks ago. Have not come up good yet. Too dry. Corn was down about 110 bu/a this year.

In the middle of September I seeded brome grass in about an acre that used to be cattle yard and it's still just as baren and dry as it was when it was seeded. Too cold for it to start now even if it does rain so maybe it'll come up next spring-IF it rains, or even snows. We haven't had a completely bare winter for many years. Maybe this winter will be the next one.Jim

Are the oats for cover, or do they over winter and you harvest them?
Here in central NY I've had volunteer oats overwinter a couple of times under cover of the winter wheat planted after them. I didn't know it until late next spring when the wheat reached its full height, and something popped up above it! They ended up being the nicest plumpest oats I've ever had! Of course cleaned out as garbage by the wheat milling folks.
I recall chatting with a fellow on here, from the UK, and I think he over-wintered oats. I wanted to find out if they were bred for that, or if their winter was mild enough they were nothing different. Never did hear back.

My tiler said tile co has 5 semis a day to supply the entire SW 1/3 of the state.

My tiler can get one semi a week at this time, and he does! If you are a regular customer you get some, if you are part time you won't, if you are a farmer you won't when supplies are this tight.

My tiler works with them a lot, butters the right bread, and orders ahead.

For the August big main job, we stacked the 15 and 12 inch tile on my farm, ordered in March, took delivery in May.

They reworked the production line in the plant near me, good news it makes ~1/3 more tile per day than it did, bad news is it was down a long while in middle of summer while they reworked it so they ran out of reserves - their yard has looked bare all spring & summer & fall, typically it builds up a lot in mid summer. And now everyone owns their own tile plow, and call in mid September all at the same time.... If one owns a tile plow, call in May, you'll get some in fall...

With that kind of demand, prices go up. If you need some next spring, order ealy. I believe tiler said there were 3 price increases between the time we ordered the big main line and when we installed it, we got the 2200 feet for a good price looking back.

The neighbor's small job of ~2000ft turned into 9000 ft, and while waiting for that to get surveyed out, they put in about 9000 ft on my property on '2-4 small wet spots, whatever you have time for, short line or 2 each spot'. These jobs keep snowballing bigger & bigger, tile gets used up.

Think I've put in $50,000 of tile on a very small farm in the past 4 years that dad had the low spots tiled in the 60's. Looking at a 30 next year there are 2 mains in it, but rolling hills, like 8 little damp areas that accumulate water in wet periods, had poor corn on 8 acres of it this year, thought the drought woulda hurt me, but no it was the wet cool spring, corn didn't grow in the wet spots. 8 acres of corn gave 50bu instead of 170 bu, $6 a bu, doesn't take long to pay for tile, rather than paying the $6000 - 9000 land or $300-410 acre rents going on around here.

When corn goes back to $3, the tile will be paid for and still helping me gain some income year after year. Much much better return on tile than trying to buy into more land at this time!

I know you understand all that, just pointing out for others what we are talking about with tile in our part of the world....

--->Paul

Tile is the cheapest hired man you can find- works 24/7 when needed, always there on Monday morning!

The oats were planted for winter grazing. I usually plant them and rye. The oats usually come up and get some size before it turns off really cold (January) allowing me to have a back-up for my rye. In the past, and I plan to this year, I graze them until the first week of March and then fertilize them and cut them for the grain. It help keep the cost of my graze down.