Below is a link to the current US drought map. I live in the small brown area just east of Lake Winnebago and Lake MI. We have been very dry here and the rains have gone north or south of us. Garden really needs the water which I am doing. Surprisingly the crops closest to Lake MI are in heavy clay and look very good. Those in lighter soils not so much. Later planted crops with shallow roots are really showing stress.
The central and eastern corn belt areas look to be having some excellent growing conditions. The western corn belt not so much.

Bryce

https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

Getting really bad here in Central MN, if it doesn't rain tonight there is no rain for another 7 days. I hope they open CRP for haying, it's getting that bad here but it's not well reflected in the map.

The Midwest is in the best shape for rainfall for the whole country.



I've been having to water a lot more than I want to, but I guess I don't have it that bad. If I keep up with the nursery, I need to invest in automatic watering systems. I am spending around 6 hours a week watering.

Keith

About to get 45 more bred cows, corn prices inching up and drought causing hay shortages makes me nervous. Gonna buy a bale prosecessor and try and grind/feed medicore hay to make it pencil

Dug a new water line here ground is just as dry three foot deep as it is on top

There's a fair number of people locally who ship hay out of state. Even with high fuel prices, it's probably worth looking into getting hay from a cheaper, more productive area.

Keith

Went through a bad one in 2012. I had the same decision to make as everyone else, sell off some to save a few or go into debt to keep the herd fed. I fed the herd. 3 years later the extra debt caught up to us. My heart goes out to people in a drought. Its a bad time all the way around.

Interesting. It shows us as being in a "moderate drought" but this is the wettest summer I can recall.

Just more proof the government controls the weather…give the remaining water to data center developers and starve out the people, and take over the world….huge conspiracy I say…

Interesting...We've been in a moderate to severe range last few years, even though we finally got a good rain 2 days ago, but the rain usually tracks north of "right here", or over the ocean , which doesn't need it, lol
What little rain we get is usually immediately taken up, by the next day the ground is dry again...

Thanks Bryce. Interesting info. Looking at the drought map in relation to cattle producing areas out west I don't see beef prices coming down for quite a while.

Lots of grass hay available up on the south shore of Lake Superior

Good chance we have the cheapest hay in the country right now, the quality just sucks in general. Last year it was hard to put up without getting rained on. This year is better windows to put up hay but now getting dry

LOL. I know you're too smart to believe what you just typed!

hope that was sarcasm Les...

That’s why Micron is building their chip plant in Clay, NY, just north of Syracuse, they will suck several millions of gallons of water daily from Lake Ontario.

We need rain.