Rain finally arrives after three dry weeks in Pennsylvania

After three weeks of rainless forecasts, farmers in Pennsylvania are finally receiving much-needed precipitation to help their crops survive and alleviate the drought stress affecting the state.

William Thiele, a dairy and crop farmer in Butler County, Pennsylvania, says that, in spite of the dry conditions his crops are looking decent. “Up until a few days ago we had 21 days straight with no rainfall,” Thiele says.

Thiele says because of the dry weather they were able to get their crops planted relatively early. “It felt like we were planting in dust because we had a lot of drought stress,” Thiele says. 

Compared to an average year, Thiele says they’re about 3 to 4 inches below the average precipitation their area receives. “We’re used to getting dry spells,” Thiele comments, “We’ll go a week to ten days in August or September without rain, but not May or June.”

The latest drought monitor map shows that Pennsylvania is experiencing 100% drought stress. Nearly 80% of the state is in a D1 moderate drought, while the remaining 20% is abnormally dry. 

“Normally our springs in western Pennsylvania can be kinda wet,” Thiele says. Because of the normally wet springs, Thiele says they plant cover crops to help draw moisture out of the ground. This year, though, he says the cover crops were pulling up too much moisture, so they terminated their cover crops earlier than normal.

In addition to growing corn, soybeans and hay, Thiele says they grow oats for their heifers. Unfortunately, this year some of the leaves at the top of the oats “were turning yellow-ish,” Thiele says. “It looked like it was dying.” After consulting his local extension agent, Thiele says he found out that his oats were suffering from a combination of yellow dwarf virus and drought stress.

Tyler Hess, a crop farmer in Berks County, Pennsylvania, says that the dry conditions have caused his crops to get behind. “Typically I like to have corn knee high by the 4th of June,” Hess says, “and it’s not there.” 

Up until June 12, Hess says things have been dry on his operation, with May this year being one of the driest on record. Hess says that the rain on June 12 helped bring some much-needed moisture to his crops. 

In addition to the uneven corn caused by the nonexistent rain, Hess says that his soybeans are also smaller than he’d like to see. He says that, because of the lack of moisture, he had to replant some of his soybeans where there wasn’t enough moisture in the soil to help the seeds germinate.

Dwane Miller, an extension educator for Penn State Extension and a farmer in Schuylkill County, further reiterates that the corn and soybeans across the board are behind and have “had some very uneven emergence” due to the drought. 

Miller says that a beneficial rain finally arrived over the majority of the state last Monday. “We’ve received some reports of close to 5 inches in my county,” he says. The rain has helped replenish the topsoil moisture supplies, Miller notes.

After three weeks without rain, the June 11 Crop Progress Condition report for Pennsylvania shows that both topsoil and subsoil moisture supplies were predominately short. Topsoil moisture supplies rated 48% very short, 42% short, and 10% adequate. Subsoil moisture supplies rated 17% very short, 50% short, and 33% adequate. 

Miller says that the dry weather has also resulted in low hay yields. “Although yields were down, with the dry weather the quality of the hay has been very good,” Miller comments. 

However, Miller shares that farmers are concerned about the yields they’ll receive with their second cutting of hay, especially with first cutting yields being as low as 50% of what was expected. 

With rain in the forecast now every other day, Miller says, “it’s definitely not a haymaker’s forecast right now.”