Minimal Drying Forecast for the Next Week
A week a heavy rains, topping over 10 inches in some locations, has led to flooding in many areas. In the Seed Consultants Planting Forecast for the coming week, chances of dry down do not look good. Swollen rivers, flash floods, and newly planted crops under water are occurring across the state. As HAT chief meteorologist Ryan Martin points out, the issue now is dry down.
Martin does see some dry days occurring next week, “The weather systems we will see this next week will not be as intense or produce as much rain as those this last week, but they will also not allow us to dry out very much.” What we need to dry things out quickly are several back to back dry days, but Martin does not see that happening this coming week, “We have rain moving back into the state on Tuesday and Wednesday, a dry day on Thursday, and then more rain on Friday and Saturday.” He sees rain totals of up to ¾ of an inch with 60% coverage around the state, “That is not a lot of moisture, but we are also not drying out this soil very much.”
The long range forecast is much the same story. According to Martin, “We have another rain system in the state the 16th-19th that could produce up to 1½ inches of rain.”
Martin says temperatures will remain cool and that too will not help with fast dry down, “When you have overnight lows in the 40s and daytime highs in the 60s, and you have saturated soils, you do not get a lot of soil warm up or dry down.” He sees this pattern slowing germination of newly planted crops. He added that air temperatures will warm later next week, but soils will be slow to warm because of the excessive moisture that is in the soil.
You can get a free copy of Ryan Martin’s planting forecast for the coming week e-mailed to you tomorrow morning along with some helpful agronomic advice from Purdue. Simply sign up today here. This planting forecast is made possible by Seed Consultants and Kokomo Grain.
