HOWARD LAKE, Minn. — The newest drought report is out and it shows parts of the state are down a foot of rain.
That puts them in an exceptional drought — something that's only happened twice in the past 23 years.
"If we do not have a good healthy snowpack season this winter, we could be in a really dire situation come spring," said Minnesota State Climatologist Luigi Romolo.
The corn crop has been hit especially hard, so much that farmer Brad Dehn thinks he may salvage about 60% of what he normally would.
"There's a little bit more out there than we thought would be out there," said Dehn. "But we knew all along it was going to be bad."
The cobs should not only have more kernels, but they should be bigger, too. Dehn says the cobs are also about 20% shorter, which can impact the price and use of corn. Dehn mostly sells it for feed and ethanol.
Dehn hopes this weekend's rain will help soften the soil to make prepping it for next spring's plant easier. But the drought is only getting worse.
"This third consecutive drought, there’s nothing normal about this and we’re at a point now where we’re rivaling the drought of 2021," said Romolo. "We would need basically the wettest fall on record just to get out of this drought."
"I think we're experiencing some climate change and I think we're seeing more extremes, the drier dries and the wetter wets," said Dehn. "There's no happy medium anymore."
Dehn doesn't have any plans any time soon to quit farming. He says the hot, dry weather at least makes harvesting much more comfortable and it should last another couple weeks.
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