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Drought and derecho make 2020 an historic weather year in Iowa
One of the nation’s top crop-producing states experienced an historic weather year in 2020.
Iowa Ag Secretary Mike Naig tells Brownfield there was the derecho wind event in August sandwiched between an expansive drought.
“We haven’t seen this kind of dryness since 2012, and it was very widespread. Ninety-nine percent of the state of Iowa was in a drought classification at one point or another during the last year.”
That should grab the attention of farmers across the country being that Iowa is the top corn producer in the U.S. and number two for soybeans.
“And as we enter spring, we are dry. And certainly western Iowa, but it reaches far and wide. So we know that we’re going to need some precipitation to restore that.”
Naig says with the right kind of warmup this spring they will hopefully see a nice easy snowmelt that recharges subsoil moisture levels.
