Oklahoma wheat planting should get a good start soon thanks to some timely rainfall.
“We received from up to 5 to over 12 inches of rain over different parts of the state, depending on where you are,” Gary McManus, Oklahoma state climatologist, said. “The rain started back in early August so we had a very wet August, a brief lull as we approached September and then the rain started again as we got into the first week of September. Really, since then, it’s rained somewhere in the state just about every day, about 40 days’ worth.”
McManus said that rainfall has been widespread across the state but centered on Osage county. Steady moisture has replenished the topsoil over much of the state except for a few areas, west central Oklahoma and the far western panhandle, which are still a little dry.
“If we look down to the top four inches, still a little bit dry, but most of the state that topsoil is replenished nice and wet. When we go down farther, down into the first three feet or so, we start to get into a little bit more drier situations over larger areas of the state. That rain replenishes the topsoil pretty quickly but it does have to soak down in. Additional rains will then help replenish those deeper soils as we go into the future. The lack of replenishment of that moisture into the deeper soils is a reflection of the longer term drought situation going all the way back to early October 2017. Those are the areas with the biggest deficits since that timeframe and those are also the areas with the lack of soil moisture down to that depth.”
But McManus said those areas should receive more rainfall as we move towards the end of the year and the beginning of El Nino. El Nino is a weather pattern distinguished by warmer waters off the west coast of South America that typically results in a cooler, wetter period for the Southern United States.
“One of the good indications that we could continue this [cooler, wetter period] is our Secondary Rainy Season [runs from] September through October while our Primary Rainy Season is April through mid-June. We are in a naturally wetter period as we come out of summer and start to transition into fall. As we go further along one of our hopes it that El Nino, which is rapidly developing in the Pacific, will bring us wetter-than-normal conditions which it tends to do through the cool season. We’re talking the October through April timeframe. El Ninos tend to bring us wetter and cooler-than-normal conditions during that six month period. They don’t always do that but if you look at the conditions on average it does tend to skew towards that wetter and cooler-than-normal weather.”
Wheat Squared is sponsored by the Oklahoma Wheat Commission and Oklahoma Genetics, Inc.
