By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Farmers look ahead to 2024, hoping to put back-to-back dry years behind them.
Norborne farmer Kyle Durham is past chair of the Missouri Soybean Merchandizing Council and says dry to drought conditions throughout the Midwest are creating some very real problems for crop production.
“Any time you have back-to-back dry years like we’ve had, there’s always a concern that the reservoirs are just kind of depleted, that the subsoil moisture becomes a problem,” Durham tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post.
The US Drought Monitor has all of northwest Missouri in moderate drought with much of Nodaway and Gentry Counties considered in severe drought. Northeast Kansas also is in moderate drought with all of Jefferson and much of Atchison and Jackson Counties considered in severe drought. Though southeast Nebraska is considered in only abnormally dry to moderate drought conditions, not far to the west in Nebraska you enter extreme to exceptional drought conditions. Southwest Iowa, at present, is considered to be in moderate drought conditions with a few areas pushing into severe drought territory.
Durham says his farm near Norborne had very surprising soybean yields this year, despite the extreme heat and dry conditions.
“And going into the first of August the pods that we did have set they were flat. I mean, there just wasn’t anything to them,” according to Durham. “So, when we got those rains that first weekend in August, if you are going to call anything a million-dollar rain, that was it.”
Durham says improved genetics in crops have helped corn and soybeans better absorb whatever rain they do get.
Durham says northwest Missouri as well as northeast Kansas avoided some of the worst of the dry weather.
“We, as farmers, I think are getting better too at adapting our practices, certainly moving toward more no-till and minimum-till so that we can hold that moisture in the soil as best we can without stirring it up and losing it,” Durham says.
Economic pressures have increased as well, according to Durham, who says farmers have had to deal with inflation increasing the cost of inputs, such as seed, fertilizer, herbicides, and fuel. The prices paid farmers can turn volatile he says.