As Exceptional Drought Grows, South Dakota Farmer Says It’s Too Dry to Even Plant
Lack of Rain 050721
Despite recent rains providing a little relief to dry areas this past week, the U.S. Drought Monitor shows areas experiencing extreme drought are only getting worse.
Illustrating the contrast, the latest U.S. Drought Monitor released Thursday shows the extreme drought category grew nearly a point this past week, while portions of the country considered abnormally dry improved nearly 3 points.
The West remains severely dry, while drought continues to also grasp the Northern Plains. North Dakota is completely covered in some level of drought, with D3, or extreme drought, covering 85% of the state. That’s three points worse than last week. And other than a small pocket in eastern South Dakota, drought is consuming that state as well, with 20% of the state experiencing exceptional drought conditions.
“It's scary dry,” says Gordon Andersen, a farmer in Beresford, South Dakota. “We started out last year with adequate subsoil in the profile. And then as the year went on, we lacked a lot of rain last year. And where we were digging down for tiling and stuff, you could dig down 10’, and there was really not much moisture at all.”
Andersen says in some area farmers are brave enough to plant, but he says in order to find a little moisture, some farmers are planting 4” deep. And with commodity prices hitting multi-year highs, he says it’s not a risk he’s willing to take yet.
“We'll have to plant, but I just think by waiting until we get a rain, I'll have a better stand,” he says. “Everybody talks about corn not having a bad day and how critical your stand is. I guess for me, this is a big deal, and I want to get it in a little better.”
The latest USDA Crop Progress Report revealed South Dakota is one of 14 states without any topsoil moisture considered 'surplus'. And the report showed subsoil moisture is in the same shape, with 70% of the subsoil considered short to very short.
Andersen says high prices are putting even more pressure on him to get a good stand in his fields. But not everyone is in that boat. The latest Crop Progress Report from USDA shows 25% of the corn crop in South Dakota is planted, which is 12 points ahead of the average pace. And farmers in the area who are taking the risk to plant right now are having to plant nearly four inches deep to try to find moisture Andersen says.
“I have not planted yet,” he says. “I had worked a bunch of fertilizer down earlier in the soils that were cold, and I didn't really want to plant quite that early. We haven't had any rain and so that upper three inches of the soil is just fluff. And I guess I would like to see a rain to be able to plant and then follow that.”
As dry conditions continue to worsen for farmers in areas such as South Dakota, Andersen says it’s going to take rains in the heat of the growing season to push this year’s crop along.
“We're going to need very timely rains because there's nothing down below,” he says. “The tiling that was done this spring, there's no moisture down there at all.”
