Wet weather in the Midwest and North was a problem last fall and it kept going into spring—delaying planting for come crops.
The precipitation is now delaying harvest this fall, made evident in this week’s Crop Progress Report.
USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey said it’s “impressive” how long the wet spell has lasted, and he believes it could last longer.
“We appear to have entered one of these longer-term wet signals that can be multi-year,” he said. “We’ll see what happens, but indications are—especially across the North—it will go into a wet winter, a snowy winter.”
Delays should be expected this fall. Rippey thinks we should be expecting spring planting delays again in 2020 “given the wetness that’s locked into the soil.”
According to the USDA, there is surplus or too much moisture on 21 percent of the nation’s topsoils. In Michigan, 73 percent of the topsoil has surplus moisture.
