By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Drought is spreading in Missouri and throughout the Midland Empire.
The latest map issued by the U.S. Drought Monitor has nearly every part of Missouri in some stage of drought, with other parts of the state considered abnormally dry.
Farmer Jason Kurtz from Oregon, Missouri, a Missouri Farm Bureau board member, says the lack of moisture has gotten serious in much of northwest Missouri.
“We’ve seen some droughts and dry weather, but I have never seen it this dry this early in the growing season,” Kurtz tells host Barry Birr on the KFEQ Hotline. “Usually, the crop is made and then it will turn off really dry toward the end of July/August.”
Hardest hit in Missouri is the central portion of the state. That extreme drought is growing, though, spreading into much of northeast Missouri, according to the Drought Monitor map. The map shows much of north-central Missouri in severe drought with nearly all of northwest Missouri in moderate drought.
Most of Buchanan County is abnormally dry with the northeast portion considered in a moderate drought condition. Only a small portion of extreme south-central Missouri has escaped the drought, so far.
Northeast Kansas is starting to feel the effects of the dry weather with most of the region considered abnormally dry with portions beginning to show moderate drought. Nebraska has been suffering under spreading drought conditions with southeast Nebraska now considered in a moderate drought. Iowa also has been suffering from dry weather with southwest Iowa experiencing moderate to severe drought.
Kurtz says the dry conditions combined with increasingly hot temperatures are hurting crops throughout the area.
“It’s going to take some time to turn it around. We were dry going into the last part of the fall last year,” according to Kurtz. “So, the ground moisture wasn’t there like we’ve had in the past and I think that’s really showing evident this year.”
Agreeing is former Missouri Farm Bureau member Vernon Hart, a Buchanan County farmer, who says it will take sustained rains to turn this around.
“Your winter moisture, snow and everything, that adds up to the sub-soil moisture and we just do not have that,” Hart says. “There are creeks not running. I run cattle, a cow-calf operation besides farming row crop with my brother. Creeks are dry and everything. The cows have got to drink on the rural water district. That’s more expense. The hay crop, it’s been running about half to two-thirds, at the best, of what it normally should run.”
The U.S. Drought Monitor operates out of the National Drought Mitigation Center on the Lincoln campus of the University of Nebraska with the aid of the USDA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
You can follow Brent on Twitter @GBrentKFEQ and @StJosephPost.