By DOUG SCHMITZ
Iowa Correspondent

DES MOINES, Iowa — Harry Hillaker and Elwynn Taylor have a fairly good idea what the upcoming spring planting season will bring U.S. farmers, especially in the Midwest.

With last year’s unseasonably cool weather, torrential rains and historic floods, Iowa farmers may be feeling a little anxious about what’s in store for them this spring. But Hillaker and Taylor – Iowa’s top climatologists – are cautiously optimistic about 2009.

“We’ve indeed had two very wet spring seasons the past two years,” said Hillaker, state climatologist for the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship in Des Moines.

In fact, the three spring months of 2008 ranked the 12th wettest in 136 years of state records on a statewide average, while the spring of 2007 ranked the 10th wettest.

“Both were also preceded by very wet winters,” Hillaker said. “Generally, the spring season has more frequently been wet in recent decades in Iowa. So the perception that it is getting harder to put seed in the ground in the spring than it used to be is correct.
“However, 2008 was different than 2007 (because) temperatures during the spring of 2008 were persistently cool. As a result, evaporation rates were very low in 2008 and soils simply did not dry very well between rain events.”

Taylor, Iowa State University extension climatologist and professor of agricultural meteorology, judged the soil across the Corn Belt on “the wet side of normal.

“Typically, 50 to 60 percent of field tiles are found to be flowing in January,” he said. “So far, it is right at 80 percent this year; it was 100 percent last year. This just means that 80 percent of all locations have greater soil moisture than the soil can hold, so some is running out the tile.

“This does mean two things. (First), it places a base flow in creeks, for it is no big thing to finish filling to flood stage. (Second), the soil is ‘full’ of moist rain and snow melt runs off rather than soaks in, thereby making the top muddy and the floods more likely. All this aside, moist soil is generally a good omen for the crop to come – at least it’s not trying to start off in the dust.”

According to the Iowa Corn 2008 Report, released last month by the ISU Department of Agronomy, last year’s planting season started slowly because of rain and cool weather, with the rate of planting progress similar to 1975-79, until rains and flooding necessitated replanting more than a million acres.

In addition, the December 2008 USDA Crop Report stated only 6 percent of Iowa’s corn was still waiting to be harvested, yet the 2008 crop finished well, with the third best yield in Iowa’s history at 172 bushels per acre, based on USDA’s November estimate.
“Obviously, the very wet spring and early summer greatly delayed planting in 2008 across Iowa,” Hillaker said. “As a result, crop development was always behind the usual schedule as well; 1993 and 2008 had many similarities.”

But for this spring’s planting season, Hillaker said the probabilities favor cooler- and drier-than-normal weather for 2009, mainly influenced by La Nina.

“These would have been the same expectations we were facing at this time in 2008,” he said. “For the most part, that is what we actually got. However, the very wet weather we had in May and June 2008 was not typical of La Nina events in Iowa.

“Overall, Iowa soils are wetter than usual for this time of year, with the exception of north central and northeast Iowa, where soil moisture is a little less than usual. Generally, most of Iowa has less soil moisture than at this time one year ago.”

Taylor said this winter has already been a repeat of 2008 and would continue that way. “Could we have record floods again? A few places already broke their all-time flood stage record in December (in Illinois and Minnesota),” he said.

“The floods of spring ’08 are history. The impact on the land is great in some spots, but not enough to be measured on impact on the big picture. The fact that we still have a like weather pattern as that of a year back does have an impact.”