Last year’s drought and derecho may make for a more challenging growing season for some Iowa farmers, but ISU Extension and Outreach is optimistic about conditions for southeast Iowa.

The U.S. Drought Monitor shows drought conditions across northern and parts of western Iowa, but Extension Field Agronomist Rebecca Vittetoe comments that no drought conditions are currently apparent in southeast Iowa, “I was actually looking at some of our weather station data that we have at the research farm down by Crawfordsville, IA. We monitor the soil moisture down at the research farm there. We’re sitting actually fairly similar to where we were last year at this time. So I was comparing looking at the moisture ratings from last year during the same time frame, and we’re actually sitting very similar, so I’m thankful that where we’re at from a moisture perspective, I feel better going into the growing season compared to other parts of the state that are sitting much drier.”

Vittetoe mentions that Washington County was not as impacted by the August derecho as other counties she serves, so she doesn’t expect too many issues with downed corn for local farmers. For farmers that do have volunteer corn, Vittetoe advises to have a plan for managing that, to get any of that growing corn killed with some shallow tillage or with an early herbicide burndown application before planting. You can hear more from Vittetoe during today’s final program of the KCII Special Edition Ag Magazine at 1 and 6 p.m.