Agricultural Impacts of the Spring and Summer Extremes of 2019

Extreme wetness across the Northern Plains and Midwest from the fall of 2018 to spring of 2019 had huge impacts on agriculture. Record wetness and several large storm events individually and combined caused large losses across the range of agriculture. Wetness in the fall of 2018 slowed and limited the harvest leading to some crops being left in the field. Several large winter storms including the March “bomb cyclone” and less covered storm events caused large livestock losses and stress in producers trying to keep newborn livestock alive. The capping issue was wetness and cold in the spring of 2019 which caused record delays to planting and has had lasting implications on the growing season of 2019 including delayed development and yield loss. Cold during the winter and spring added to many of the impacts including loss of forage for livestock and some specialty crop losses. These issues will be discussed along with the hydrologic extremes in the context of larger climatic changes in the Midwest and Northern Plains, which are causing larger shifts in agricultural production.