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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Ames, Iowa » National Laboratory for Agriculture and The Environment » Soil, Water & Air Resources Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #377382
Research Project: Managing Energy and Carbon Fluxes to Optimize Agroecosystem Productivity and Resilience

Location: Soil, Water & Air Resources Research

Title: Record wetness and the impact on U.S. Midwest/Plains agriculture growing season 2019

Author
item Todey, Dennis

Submitted to: American Meteorological Society
Publication Type: Other
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/19/2020
Publication Date: 8/12/2020
Citation: Todey, D.P. 2020. Sidebar 7.1: Record wetness and the impact on U.S. Midwest/Plains agriculture growing season 2019. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 101(8):S334. https://doi.org/10.1175/2020BAMSStateoftheClimate_Chapter7.1.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1175/2020BAMSStateoftheClimate_Chapter7.1

Interpretive Summary: The publication describes the agricultural-climate impacts of the 2019 growing season in the Midwest/Northern Plains. There were many record-setting problems in planting and crop development because of wet and cool conditions. This article reviews the high points of the year.

Technical Abstract: The climate of 2019 was extreme and record setting in many ways in the Midwest and Plains setting many precipitation records by huge amounts leading to many flooding episodes throughout the region. But the impact to agriculture was larger than the flooding episodes. This sidebar reviews the climate issues of 2019 in the agricultural impacts. Corn, soybeans and other crops set record late planting and emergence numbers throughout the spring. The overall delays in planting and summer temperatures led to delayed crop development and some under-developed crops in the fall. Wet conditions in the fall along with delayed crops slowed harvest progress reaching near-record delays in harvest and problems managing poor quality yield. Some fields were not harvested before snow leaving over 50% of corn in North Dakota left in the field at the beginning of calendar year 2020.