In 2011, Texas farmers were left with bone-dry soils after a record breaking 7 month dry spell and record high temperatures soaring over 100°. The harsh circumstances lead to cracked soils and numerous other problems, but it gave farmers new motivation to really think about their irrigation methods and analyze what they were doing when applying water to their fields.

Recent intense rainfall events (technically referred to as “toad stranglers� or “goose drownders�) have caused flooding of low-lying corn fields or ponding (standing water) in poorly drained swales within fields. Other areas within fields, while not technically flooded or ponded, may remain saturated for lengthy periods of time.

Currently in West Texas, we are in one of the worst droughts since the 1930's and 1950's. We are now entering the third year of this drought. Recently, I did some research on the drought of the 1930's and 1950's. In my hometown of Plainview, Texas (average annual rainfall = 20.17 inches), our rainfall for 2011 and 2012 was 5.63 and 10.48 inches respectively. In comparison, the two lowest years of precipitation during the 1930's was 10.16 and 13.75 inches in 1933-1934 and for the 1950's was 11.29 and 10.39 inches in 1953-54.

Scientists at the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service recently developed a simple, web-based tool that helps producers easily understand the quality of water flowing off their fields, the Water Quality Index for Agricultural Runoff (WQIag).

It was the one thing that was on the mind of most everyone at the 2013 annual outlook conference of the U.S. Agriculture Department.

During a recent presentation at the 21st annual Conservation Tillage and Technology Conference held at Ohio Northern University in Ada, a Purdue University professor addressed farmers on improving drought tolerance for crops.

The latest NOAA drought outlook predicts that dry weather is expected to persist and even expand in parts of the central U.S., while some improvement is expected further east in the Corn Belt.

Dry conditions and lack of soil moisture availability, especially during planting time this spring, can create water stress resulting in delayed germination, a reduction in plant stands or may prevent seed germination.

Harris-Mann Climatology's long-term forecaster, climatologist Cliff Harris, predicts a continuation of the major drought in the central U.S., which is likely to lead to even higher grain and soybean prices later this year.

Based on the results from the trials, strip-till looks promising for soybean production in 30-inch rows in Michigan, but the practice should be restricted to fields having slopes less than 5% to reduce water-erosion potential in the rows.