Hot, dry, September weather across much of Oklahoma disrupted soybean development, leading to smaller-than-projected yields overall.
Historically, 2021 will go down as a tale of two soybean crop choices: full-season and double-crop. The double-crop soybeans were planted following harvest of a field’s first grain crop, such as wheat in many Oklahoma counties. The more quickly developing double-crop varieties were less affected by the September weather than the slower developing full-season varieties.
“Full-season soybean growers have been frustrated; everything was looking good and then Oklahoma was hit by atypical weather in September, which is a really key time in the development of the plants,” said Josh Lofton, Oklahoma State University Extension cropping systems specialist. “The big takeaway is to realize they didn’t do anything wrong. Mother Nature just threw them a curve.”
As late as Sept. 1, analysts were projecting a 2% increase in the 2021 Oklahoma soybean crop over the previous year. Lofton recently spoke more in-depth about September’s effect on the agricultural television show SUNUP.