The Official Newspaper for Foster County
The Official Newspaper for Foster County
Several of us were visiting about the weather last week, when the man next to me said, “The onion forecast predicts we’ll have a wet July.”
Thinking that I hadn’t heard clearly, I asked the man to repeat the name of the forecast.
“The onion forecast,” he said before spelling it out. “O-n-i-o-n.” The man then explained to me how he used an onion and salt on New Year’s Eve to forecast the weather of the following year.
I put little stock in the man’s forecast method. What I do know is that temperatures during the last month have been extraordinarily warm.
From May 21 through June 9, we had 20 consecutive days in Foster County when temperatures exceeded 80 degrees. The average high during that period was 14 degrees above normal.
Alfalfa responded well to the warm temperatures and abundant moisture. The first cutting looks outstanding. Many fields were nearly ready to cut by June 10.
Corn and soybeans can handle the heat as long as moisture is adequate.
There is reason, however, to be concerned about wheat and barley.
These cool season crops grow best and have the highest yield potential when temperatures during the first part of the growing season are in the range of 65 to 70 degrees.
Temperatures in the 80s have potential to reduce both the number of tillers and the head size of wheat and barley.
It is too early to say that the yields of these small grains will be poor this year.
If weather conditions are favorable in late June and July, wheat and barley can compensate by forming a greater number of seeds per spikelet and by increasing grain weight.
Rainfall has been spotty across the county during the past several weeks. Some people have told me they received two or more inches of precipitation, while neighbors a mile or two down the road got little if any rain.
The moisture content of the subsoil is more than adequate for crop growth, but some farmers would likely welcome half an inch to an inch of rain.
Readers will recall that we had a very wet spring last year and then the weather turned dry throughout the rest of summer. Rainfall at the Carrington REC was only about 50 percent of normal during July and August.
