JOHNSTOWN, Pa. —
In the four decades Mary Beth Lieb has been farming with her husband, Ralph, she has seen dry times and wet times, and she has learned one thing: You have to roll with the punches.
“You can’t change Mother Nature,” Lieb said.
A prolonged heat wave, where temperatures have reached levels not seen since the dust bowl days of the 1930s, leaves farmers hoping they can salvage at least part of their summer corn crop.
Depending on when the corn was planted in the spring, some is tall and going into tassel while later plantings are struggling to meet the old adage of being “knee-high by the Fourth of July,” Tom Ford, Penn State Extension horticulture educator, said.
“In some valleys, the corn is beautiful. But on the other end of that valley it looks like a pineapple,” Ford said. “It all depends on who got the showers.”
In Iowa, much of the state has slipped int a drought. Three months ago, 60 percent of the state showed no drought conditions. Now, at over 80 percent of the state is "abnormally dry," according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. The hardest-hit areas are in southeast Iowa, where parts of four counties are classified as enduring "severe drought" conditions.
Farmers keep looking to the skies hoping for some long overdue precipitation. In Ottumwa, the average June brings 5.1 inches of rain. This year, the month saw only 3.24 inches. That doesn't sound bad, until you realize that four-fifths of that total fell on June 15-16.
Between June 17 and the end of the month, just over a third of an inch of rain fell. Not enough to keep crops healthy in the searing heat. The extreme heat is expected to break this weekend, but it's not expected to bring any rain.
Southeast Iowa
American farmers keeping a parched eye on the skies
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