Harvest season might come later this year for Northern Missouri farmers who battled torrential rains during planting season. Some Southern Missouri farmers might be calling it a loss. It’s all related to the weather, which wildy varied, throughout the state during the summer growing months.
University of Missouri Climatologist Pat Guinan says North, Northeast and Central Missouri got upwards 20 to 30 inches of rain in a three-month timeframe. Conversely, areas in the Bootheel got less than four.
He says farmers in Southeast Missouri with irrigation systems were able to combat the drought to a degree. He says it took its toll on crops and pastures … some are already feeding their livestock hay even this early in the year because fields have dried up.
Guinan says the humidity dewpoint was the highest this summer since totals from the ’40s. But he says farmers — and everyone, for that matter — should enjoy a mild fall with less rain and warmer than average temperatures.
