Map: Seasonal Drought Outlook Points to More Dryness for Parts of Midwest

Jun 15, 2023

The latest seasonal drought outlook from the US Climate Production Center is painting a worrisome picture for this year’s Midwest corn and soybean crops.

Released Thursday, the outlook suggests drought will develop or persist from eastern Iowa and through much of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the end of September. Michigan and Wisconsin are also expected to be dry. (See map below). The expected dryness was the main factor in propelling corn and soybean futures to sharp gains today.

“More widespread drought development is anticipated for the central Corn Belt, Great Lakes region, (and western New York), with long range forecasts favouring below-normal precipitation and above-normal temperatures,” the outlook said.

The development of an El Nino event was expected to result in wetter conditions this year for the Midwest, but it seems increasingly likely the moisture will arrive later rather than sooner for crops already being stressed by drought conditions. The latest weekly US drought monitor shows almost half of the entire Midwest region (49%) was in some form of drought as of Tuesday, up from 32% a week earlier and the highest since early November 2022.

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Video: New research chair appointed to accelerate crop variety development

Funded by Sask Wheat, the Wheat Pre-Breeding Chair position was established to enhance cereal research breeding and training activities in the USask Crop Development Centre (CDC) by accelerating variety development through applied genomics and pre-breeding strategies.

“As the research chair, Dr. Valentyna Klymiuk will design and deploy leading-edge strategies and technologies to assess genetic diversity for delivery into new crop varieties that will benefit Saskatchewan producers and the agricultural industry,” said Dr. Angela Bedard-Haughn (PhD), dean of the College of Agriculture and Bioresources at USask. “We are grateful to Sask Wheat for investing in USask research as we work to develop the innovative products that strengthen global food security.”

With a primary focus on wheat, Klymiuk’s research will connect discovery research, gene bank exploration, genomics, and breeding to translate gene discovery into improved varieties for Saskatchewan’s growing conditions.