and future generations. >> For "Here& Now, I'm Stephen
Potter. >> Turning to agriculture,
experts are calling it a weather whiplash. First, too much dry
weather caused drought in Wisconsin. Now there's too much
rain for farmers and their crops are feeling the effects. We turn
to Natasha Perez, covering central Wisconsin as regional
crops educator with UW-Madison extension, who joins us from
Green Lake. And thanks very much for being here.
>> Thanks for having me. >> So describe the weather
whiplash, as you call it. How severe is it,
>> well, last year at this time, we had just experienced our
fourth driest May on record and our 10th, driest June on record,
and we were still in drought here in Green Lake County into
the end of May. And now here in Green Lake, we aren't in drought
anymore. And in fact, we've had excess amounts of rain. And,
statewide we had the 10th wettest May on record. And the
numbers are still being finalized, but we're looking at
being in the top ten wettest Junes as well.
>> So where in the state is the worst of the water access,
>> it's really in that north central region, spanning kind of
from the northeast over to the north central, there's, there's
kind of this, this band, across, I think it's in marathon,
Lincoln, Langlade area, that's, that's that's had an excess
amount of rain. And I've heard from folks up there that there
really haven't been able to get a lot of their crops in, and
there's a lot of fields that are just standing empty or the crops
have failed. Yeah, that was what I was going to ask is what has
been the effect on crops? Yeah So, we have we have fields
where, the, the crops were able to get in early and, sometimes
they've made it through and done and done pretty well. But then
sometimes they got caught in those absolute deluges of rain
and they, they, they were drowned out. So we've been
talking about things like replant, or there's, there's
cases where they've just never been able to get in the fields
at all. And so we're looking at, at what we call a prevented
plant situation where you if you have the right crop insurance,
you might be able to receive some type of payment. But
there's a lot of fields where, the corn was planted a month
late, if not more. >> So what are what are farmers
telling you about their their mood with all of this right now,
it really depends on the farm. >> It depends on what they're
growing for, I, you know, they're they're they're for the
some of them are feeling are really feeling the pinch in
terms of if they are a dairy farm and they planted a new
seeding of alfalfa and they weren't able to get much out of
it or the, the alfalfa that they have been able to harvest
because it was delayed, because it was so wet, the quality isn't
very good. And so you're just not getting going to get as many
pounds of milk out of that. So that's really been putting a
pinch on some of our dairy farmers.
notes manure runoff risk. Is that an overall risk or more so
in specific places in the state, >> well, it's a risk based on
soil type and topography. So areas where we have those,
those, those, those clay soils, and the Filthier soils that are,
that are going to move more easily, that can that can cause
risk. And then, obviously on areas where there's, there's
more hills and then also the type of tillage and the type of
cropping system being used. And so there's been some rain events
this year that have kind of overdone whatever cropping
system has been in place, but so we've been really trying to, to
help people use the tools that are available to assess the
intensity of the rainfall that could be predicted, to better to
time their manure applications, to, to prevent runoff.
>> So gauging what you're seeing to date, what does the rest of
the growing season hold? Well, we are we're looking at, a
little bit warmer, a little bit, a little bit wetter.
>> July, but then over the course of the summer as a whole,
we're looking at warmer. There's not a clear signal yet. About
what? About being wet or dry, and so at this point, those who
have really had these early season struggles are hoping for
some, some, break in the rain so that they can at least get
established. Maybe, maybe an alternative forage here in the
in the, high summer to be able to grow some feed for the
animals, and those who are growing for grain purposes are
looking at, really dialing in their, their disease management
because this hot, wet weather is going to really kick up the
incidence of disease that we're having in, in our crops. And so
really making sure that we're timing those fungicide
applications at the right time. So we can counteract disease
that can affect yield and quality.