Only a year ago, Wisconsin farmers were in the midst of a "flash drought." However, persistent rain showers this year have left standing water in many fields, effectively drowning young corn and soybean plants.
Crop producers have experience with weather whiplash events. After months of wetter-than-normal conditions that stretched back to November 2022 ‒ including the wettest winter on record, farmers had all they could do to get crops planted in the spring of 2023.
Then came a large dome of high pressure that anchored itself over Canada, setting in motion lower-than-normal rates of precipitation, accompanied by abnormally high temperatures, winds and radiation ‒ all the ingredients for a flash drought and the fourth driest May on record.
"You would have to go back to the big drought year of 1988 to find a drier May, and before that, all the way back to the thick of the Dust Bowl in 1934," said Steve Vavrus, a climatologist with the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
In early March, the U.S. Drought Monitor reported that 90% of the state was facing early drought conditions. Three months later, the trend has reversed.
In May 2023, the Madison area recorded just 0.87 inches of precipitation, compared to 5.51 inches over the first five months this year, said Andy Boxell, lead meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sullivan.
"The weather pattern in Wisconsin has been quite active. For the last six to eight weeks the weather pattern in Wisconsin has been quite active with rain every couple of days," Boxell said.
Window for planting corn for grain will soon close
According to the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service Crop Report, planting progress for soybeans and corn is 9 to 13 days behind last year. While 87% of the state's corn is in the ground, 13% of those acres remain unplanted.
Farmers are quickly running up on the deadline to plant corn for grain, said Joe Lauer, University of Wisconsin-Madison agronomy and Extension corn specialist.
"Up until then they have options and can still plant and produce a good enough yield," Lauer said. "But fairly soon they will need to look at planting something like soybeans, an emergency forage or using that corn for silage. But if they plan on using it for grain, it has to happen this week."
Rainfall events can create havoc in corn fields, depending on the growth stage of the corn at flooding, frequency and duration of flooding, and air-soil temperature during flooding.
"Corn can survive a short flood period of about 24 hours," Lauer said. "But these areas of ponding lasting a week or more, the areas are going to die out and farmers will have to go in and replant when it dries out."
This is especially true in southwest Wisconsin, which Lauer says was one of the hardest hit areas with a lot of flood damage in low-lying areas.
Flooding may result in lower yields and lots of weeds
Not only do waterlogged corn plants have an uphill climb to produce a decent yield, they are also susceptible to a number of diseases, including stalk rot that can lead to lodging.
If farmers were lucky enough to get their corn in the ground before the rainy weather set in, their cooperatives tasked with spraying herbicides may not be as fortunate.
"Probably the biggest crunch in management time right now is being able to spray the fields in a timely manner for good weed control," Lauer said. "And right now the weeds are getting a jump on the corn. That's going to become a dominating issue."
Many farmers report that their alfalfa fields are green and lush and are prime for cutting. According to the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service Crop Report, just 61% of the first cutting of alfalfa hay was complete, and six days behind last year.
The ideal cutting date for the first crop of alfalfa is around Memorial Day, said Scott Newell, University of Wisconsin Division of Extension alfalfa outreach specialist.
"We have farmers that cut their fields around that time but couldn't chop it and it got rained on," Newell said. "My uncle who lives up in the Rhinelander area hasn't even cut most of his alfalfa."
Typically the first cutting in spring is made when the crop is in the bud to early-bloom stage.As the hay matures, the purple flowers begin to bloom, signaling that the plant is losing quality and nutritional value, making it less digestible for animals.
"By then the quality goes down considerably," Newell said. "Basically you end up with something you wouldn't necessarily use for lactating dairy cow feed rations."
Nevell says insect pressure is also ramping up this spring.
"We've had a lot of weevil pressure, as well as having a pretty cool, relatively long growing season before we got to the first cutting," he said. "Another thing that comes from leaving that cutting date longer is that you leave yourself open to more lodging risk, which can make it a little harder to harvest off that field."
More rain expected in the forecast
According to NOAA's 8-14 Day Precipitation Outlook, Wisconsin is likely to see an above average chance for precipitation leading into next week.
"We're in an active pattern with additional chances of rain. By Thursday it will really start to warm up into the 80s," Boxell said. "And depending where these weather systems set up, we could have a pretty regular dose of complexes of showers and thunderstorms that move through almost on a daily basis."
