Dry September leaves worries for fall planting

Winds kick up dust

in Tuesday night storm

For the sixth time on record, Whitman County received not a drop of rain in September.

Dave Jones with the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Colfax reported Monday he had not recorded any rain last month.

Jones reported .02 inches of rain fell in his gauge in August.

That left fields dry for farmers who are beginning to plant winter wheat crops.

Another complication blew through Whitman County Tuesday night, as high winds swept across the hills and filled the sky with dust picked up from dry fields.

Bob Barry at the United States Department of Agriculture’s Agriculture Research Service center in Pullman reported .02 inches of rain fell in his gauge in September, making it the third driest September on record. The ARS did not record any rain in 1975 and 1987.

“It’s pretty strange to see it this dry,” said Barry.

National Weather Service on Tuesday reported no rain at its monitoring station in LaCrosse and just seven-tenths of an inch of rain at Rosalia.

Jones reported dry Septembers were logged at the Colfax NRCS office, which keeps records back to 1940, in 1987, 1990, 1991, 1993 and 1994. Jones also noted no rain fell in October 1987 as well.

What that means for fall crops is uncertain, however.

“People are really going to be stressed out right now,” said Steve Van Vleet, county extension agent. “A lot of guys are waiting for a little rain to fall before planting.”

Dry autumn weather really begins impacting crops after Oct. 15, said Van Vleet. If still dry then, farmers can expect to see reduced yields in their winter wheat.

According to the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service’s office in Olympia, the 1988 crop of winter wheat that was planted in the dry 1987 autumn yielded 72 bushels per acre in Whitman County.

The rainless 1990 September produced yields of 71 bushels per acre the following summer, but a dry autumn in 1991 helped drop yields to 61 bushels per acre. Whitman County wheat yields were 59 bushels per acre after the dry 1993 September, but 69.9 after the dry 1994.

Impacts from a dry autumn should be less in western Whitman County, said Van Vleet, where farmers plant their winter wheat crops in deep furrows.

Direct-seeded crops, he added, likely have more moisture left in the soil from the rainy spring than fields that have been tilled up and dried out by sun and wind.