No rain in southwest Minnesota since early August as harvest speeds along

Carolyn Olson, a certified organic corn and soybean farmer in Cottonwood, Minnesota, said the 2024 growing season started off with a wet spring, which made it challenging for some farmers in her area to get their crops planted. 

Despite the challenges to get crops in the ground, Olson said the rainy spring was the first time in three years that Minnesota was 100% drought free. 

The latest drought monitor map shows that 28% of Minnesota is in D2 severe drought. Forty-three percent of the state is in D1 moderate drought, 25% is abnormally dry, and just 3% is free from drought stress. Just three months ago, 100% of the state was drought free.

Because her farm had endured three previous seasons of drought, Olson said last year’s crops “were practically drying down in front of our eyes.”

As a result, the reprieve from a three-year-long drought with a wet planting season provided Olson’s farm with adequate precipitation and subsoil moisture. However, with little to no rain since early August, Olson said “the water table is dropping again.”

“We thought we had recharged it this spring,” she said, “but it’s dropping again.” 

The USDA Crop Progress report for Minnesota for the week ending Oct. 13 shows that there’s no surplus of topsoil moisture in the state. Topsoil moisture supplies were 26% very short, 42% short, and 32% adequate. Subsoil moisture supplies were 17% very short, 34% short, 48% adequate, and 1% surplus.

Current weather reports show little to no anticipated precipitation in the forecast for Cottonwood, Minnesota, Olson said. 

Although the growing season began with a recharged water table, Olson said this drastic shift to a dry fall is making this year’s drought feel worse than in the past few years. 

Olson, a registered volunteer for the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail & Snow Network (CoCoRaHS), which measures precipitation across the nation, said there hasn’t been more than 0.13 inches of rain in her area since the beginning of September. The rainfall event that left puddles on her farm occurred at the beginning of August with just 1.4 inches, Olson said. 

The lack of rain has impacted harvest on Olson’s farm in a way they didn’t anticipate, she said. “Our soybeans dried down really quick, and we needed to get them out as quick as we could.” This led Olson to harvest her soybeans at a record pace, with a record number of acres harvested on her farm in a single day, she said.

When it comes to the farm’s corn crop, Olson said some of the corn’s moisture levels have been at 14.5%, “so when you run it through the grain drier it’s already dry.” 

This has allowed Olson to save some money on the cost of drying this season’s corn, however windy conditions have sparked concerns about the dry cobs remaining on stalks, Olson said. In addition to worrying about corn falling over due to the wind, Olson said there are also concerns over field fires. “Thankfully there have been very few reports of fires in our area.”

In spite of all the challenges as harvest continues, Olson said her corn yields aren’t reflective of the dry conditions that have had a chokehold on Minnesota since August. 

“We haven’t crunched the final numbers yet,” Olson said, “but a guesstimate from bin levels is that our corn yields were over 200 bushels per acre (bpa). This is probably one of our record crops.”

As harvest wraps up, Olson said she’s hopeful for a normal snow weather pattern this year, “just to prove that we can get precipitation.” 

A good snow cover would also be helpful for the alfalfa fields that don’t look very good right now, Olson said. 

“You can see where all of the sand veins are,” she said, “it’s as brown as brown can be.”