"Timing is everything." How often have we heard that line over the years? It's not what happens, but when. That statement may never be truer than this year as crops develop over the summer months.
I've never covered a crop season like this one for headline attention, thanks to supercharged commodity demand and reduced world production.
So, what's the weather outlook for the summer of 2008? We'll first check the big picture, then we'll focus on areas of U.S. crop country where midsummer prospects are the most favorable. We'll finish with a review of where the weather outlook is more challenging as we approach pollination and flowering.
La Niña echoes remain. The strongest La Niña Pacific Ocean event of the past 15 years is not going away quietly. La Niña is the term used to describe the situation when the equatorial Pacific Ocean sea surface temperatures are at least a half-degree Celsius or one degree Fahrenheit below average. When La Niña events develop, they have an average life span of around nine months. This one began in September 2007.
During midsummer, we're going to see the ocean temperature and pressure patterns continue with a bias toward La Niña conditions. Some forecast model consolidations—which crunch forecasts from a half-dozen different computer predictions—are calling for at least a weak La Niña condition to extend through this summer and fall, and into winter 2008/2009. This is not out of line; there have been other La Niñas that have hung around for this long.
We can already attribute much of the heightened interest in this year's crop output to La Niña-related concern. For example, Argentina's corn harvest was about the same size as a year ago. Yet farmers actually planted enough corn acreage that would have yielded a 20% bigger crop, if it weren't for the La Niña-related drought and heat in January when pollination began.
In Australia, last fall's wheat crop was hurt by untimely rains as it was heading out and in the final stages before harvest. The reason? La Niña.
Here in the U.S., our planting season got off to a slow start because of cold weather in much of the Plains and Midwest during last winter. Plus, bombastic snow hit the central Corn Belt all the way through the Northeast, while the southern Midwest and Delta experienced horrendous flooding and severe weather. These occurrences can all be attributed to a cranky atmosphere brought on by La Niña.
Finally, the southwestern Plains wheat areas saw a lack of rain from planting time last fall through late winter. That put the region in need of any bailout moisture it could find.
The haves. If we continue to have a sputtering La Niña Pacific temperature trend the rest of summer, surely someone has to benefit, right?
The southern Plains, Ohio Valley and the eastern Great Lakes appear to have "normal" conditions in store for mid- to late summer; that is, no definite hot-weather trend or "dry" precipitation prospects.
This is a promising outlook for crops in the eastern and southern areas of the Corn Belt because a negligible chance for above-average temperatures helps minimize the threat to crops from a heat wave.
The have-nots. Unfortunately, this means the rest of the country faces a less promising fate. From northern and central Illinois west and north, the precipitation outlook for the rest of the summer is below average. The greatest chance for dry weather is shaping up over Iowa and northern Illinois.
This large swath of country with dry conditions obviously takes in the rest of the Corn Belt, along with much of the northern Plains spring wheat areas and the croplands of the Pacific Northwest.
As far as temperatures are concerned, the balance of the Plains and Midwest will have normal readings. But from the Rockies west, look for above-normal temperatures—hot weather. The Southeast has a mixed outlook: above-normal temperatures and normal precipitation trends. Dryness concerns will continue to dog the region through the rest of the year.
A final thought. Conditions already began on a difficult note for U.S. row crops in April due to wet and cold conditions. Can we raise a good crop? Certainly. Can we raise a crop that makes a big dent in the world food and bioenergy demand picture? The way things are going, probably not.