Growing Season Outlook

By Jim Noel

Conditions are fairly reasonable from the weather and climate front. Nothing is ever ideal but temperatures and rainfall have been reasonable to this point. July will likely go down as a bit wetter than normal with temperatures slightly warmer than normal mostly due to overnight lows being higher. It does not appear we will see maximum temperatures above 95 much in July which is good news. Rainfall is normally 3-4 inches in July across the state and it looks like most places will be in the 2-5 inch range. Isolated higher totals are also possible. So even the locations with below normal rainfall should not be too dry. If anything we may battle the slightly wetter and more humid side of things.

The remainder of the growing season trend looks to continue with slightly wetter and warmer than normal. You can see all the latest outlooks at the NOAA Climate Prediction Center located here:  https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/long_range/lead01/off01_prcp.gif

Harvest Outlook

The autumn harvest outlook indicates the warmer than normal trend will persist with rainfall trending normal.

La Nina
It appears there could be another La Nina this winter into spring but we will know more in the next few months. We will keep you informed. Typically La Nina has negative impacts on crops in Ohio so it is worth paying attention to.

Rainfall Pattern Across the Corn and Soybean Region

The pattern through mid to late July supports normal to above normal across much of the crop growing states with the exception of the far western areas of the Plains as shown on the graphic above. This would likely be supportive to crops overall.