Dry weather speeds up Southeast Missouri harvest

SIKESTON, Mo. -- Fall's dry weather created ideal harvest conditions for farmers but combined with the warmer-than-average temperatures, it wreaked havoc on the corn crop.

"Dry weather is always nice during harvest. Cotton, rice, soybean and corn harvests were done in record time this year," said Anthony Ohmes, agronomy specialist for the University of Missouri Extension's Mississippi County office in Charleston.

Ohmes said one farmer told him this year was probably the earliest he's ever finished the harvest season.

"It was his record for consecutive harvest days in all the years he's been farming. Many were able to get finished early (because of the dry weather)," Ohmes said.

Farmers were also able to get a lot of fall work, such as tillage, soil sampling and lime spread, done, Ohmes said.

But there are downsides to the lack of rainfall, too.

Below normal rainfall for most of the summer and in the early fall has led to the development of severe drought for parts of Southeast Missouri, according to the National Weather Service.

"Usually our fall is pretty dry as it is, and it's hit or miss when it does rain," said Christine Wielgos of National Weather Service in Paducah, Ky. "We get a dry period and sometimes it just happens that way, but I can't think of a year it's been as dry as it's been this year."

According to Missouri State Climatologist Patrick Guinan, preliminary data were indicating statewide October rainfall ranked as the fourth driest October on record and the driest since 1964. The average statewide total was .70 inches, which is 2.66 inches below normal.

Local rainfall totals for October were .72 inch for Scott County, .68 inch for New Madrid County, .51 inch for Mississippi County, 1.05 inches for Stoddard County, .50 inch for Dunklin County and .66 inch for Pemiscot County, according to precipitation totals reported by Farm Service Agency county offices to the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

The National Agricultural Statistics Service Missouri Field Office's latest weekly crop and weather report for the week ending Oct. 31 said although some rainfall was received throughout the state, producers made significant progress at an above-average pace with harvest and winter wheat seeding. Fall pasture, stock water supplies and wheat emergence continue to suffer due to the lack of moisture, according to the report.

"All crops that didn't have irrigation suffered. Their yields were reduced, but the two hurt the worst in the heat and dry weather were corn and rice," Ohmes said.

Ohmes said many Southeast Missouri growers were pleasantly surprised by the soybean crop.

"Beans can tolerate more extremes. We did get a nice rain in September, and a few areas caught nice rain in August so that really helped the bean crop. There were probably some irrigated areas that did very well, but even the dry land areas did well in beans," Ohmes said.

Even irrigated corn was hurt by the dryness because it's hard to keep up with moisture requirements of corn. Ohmes said.

Farmers are busy now evaluating the output of their irrigation systems for the next growing season, Ohmes said.

Disease pressure was very low, which is a good thing, Ohmes said. However, because insects are attracted to the diseases, there was more insect pressure in crops since the insects didn't have the diseases to feed on, he explained.

Meanwhile, Wednesday's rain should help the winter wheat, Ohmes said.

"Farmers should conduct field-to-field evaluations on their wheat crop," the agronomy specialist said.

Also with the recent dry weather, pay attention to the aphid population, Ohmes noted. Aphids -- which are small bugs that feed by sucking sap from plants -- are driven by temperatures, he said.