CHICAGO - Planting is expected to start early in the northern U.S. Corn Belt after a dry winter but seeding is behind schedule in southern crop areas where it's been too wet, U.S. government forecasters said on Thursday.
"I would expect planting to go a little better in the upper Midwest this spring than it will in the Ohio River Valley," Brad Rippey, a meteorologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, told reporters at a spring outlook presentation.
Typically, corn planting begins by mid-April in the upper and central Midwest. In the southern Midwest, including the southern tips of Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, farmers often start planting in early April. But those regions are delayed by scattered flooding after this winter's heavy snow.
In the Delta and Texas, farmers often begin planting as early as late February. But in Texas, just 11 percent of the corn crop was seeded by Sunday, versus the five-year average of 25 percent.
"As of mid-March we haven't seen a single acre of rice or corn planted in Louisiana," Rippey said. "That is behind the five-year average."
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In contrast, drought pressure is expanding in the northern Corn Belt centered on Minnesota and adjacent states.
The weekly U.S. Drought Monitor issued on Thursday showed dryness intensifying in the northern Midwest after weekly temperatures averaged 18 to 24 degrees Fahrenheit above normal in the Dakotas and Minnesota.
Steve Baun, a hydrologist for the North Central River Forecast Center, told reporters the winter of 2015 in his region was among the top 10 driest in history.
"That rivals 2012, which was a very low flow year on the Mississippi River," Baun said.
The federal Climate Prediction Center on Thursday said severe drought pressure in Western states "is also likely to continue in parts of the southern Plains" this spring.
"Forecasters say drought improvement or removal is favored for some areas in the Southwest, southern Rockies, southern Plains and Gulf Coast while drought development is more likely in parts of the northern Plains, upper Mississippi Valley and western Great Lakes where recent dryness and an outlook of favored below average precipitation exist," the agency said.
