Weekly Weather and Crop Update

The last Weekly Weather and Crop Update of the season from the Southern Research and Outreach Center at Waseca was released Wednesday. Warm and dry were two words used to describe the weather last week. Those were two words that could not be used in an update since mid August. Temperatures averaged 43.3 degrees which was .9 degrees above normal. Rainfall totaled .04 inches and that was .42 inches less than normal.

The first two weeks of October were miserable and very little field work was done. It rained on 10 of the 14 days that totaled over 3 inches. The weather changed for the last two weeks of October with only a tenth of an inch of rain. For the month temperatures averaged 43.5 degrees and that was 5 degrees colder than normal.

Soybean harvest is pretty well wrapped up and farmers have harvested over one half of the corn. In addition a lot of tillage is done and anhydrous ammonia is being applied. The soil temperatures in southern Minnesota are well below the "magic" 50 degrees and it would be very rare to see them increase above that level in November.