By Ryan McGeeney
By the time Michael Chaney, Poinsett County extension staff chair for the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture, emptied 7 inches of rain from the rain gauge at the county extension office on June 22, he knew the area was in for a deluge.
“We dumped it out, then somehow got three more inches,” Chaney said.
The torrential rainfall that Monday put row crops and residential areas under significant water throughout much of the northeastern corner of Arkansas. Ana Morales-Ona Smith, extension soil fertility specialist for the Division of Agriculture, posted drone footage of the area around the Northeast Rice Research and Extension Center in Poinsett County on social media, showing research plots and other crop fields partially submerged in the immediate aftermath of the rain event, as well as the same area one week later.
Standing water in Crittenden, Poinsett and other counties in the area, though it has since drained off, will likely lead growers to replant as much as 15 percent of their acreage in some places. With the 2026 growing season already into July, any replanted acres will likely go toward soybeans.
Chaney said getting water off active cropland was a high priority immediately after the event.
Source : uada.edu