Dry Spell Followed By Severe Weather Could Go Either Way For Cool-Season Plantings

MARY HIGHTOWER 

LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS

Several weeks of dry warm weather followed by potential severe weather this weekend could go either way for ranchers trying to get their cool-season annuals planted.

The National Weather Service at Little Rock said Tuesday that “confidence continues to increase for strong to severe t-storms on Saturday p.m. Primary hazards at this time are damaging winds and large hail, but a few tornadoes cannot be ruled out.”

The storms would follow several weeks of very dry weather. As of Oct. 9, more than 45 percent of Arkansas had some form of drought, with less than 20 percent of the state not having any drought, according to the Drought Monitor.

“The best time to get cool-season forages in is basically now,” said Jonathan Kubesch, extension forage specialist for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. “We're in our most reliable window for fall plantings.

“Dry weather has been a challenge for those cool-season plantings,” he said. “I personally planted annual ryegrass last weekend with the goal of catching a rain this week or next. 

“For seed that’s already in the ground or seedlings coming up, this weekend might be the start or the end of things,” he said. “Earlier plantings may have worse odds than what’s been recently planted.

“We've left our window about mid-September, where we would have planted in the fall to get something this side of January,” Kubesch said.  “If we delay our planting, we're going to delay our grazing next spring,

“Now, everything that we’re going to seed now is something we’re going to start using toward the end of winter into next spring,” he said. 

How severe weather might affect a newly seeded area will depend on local conditions, especially where the ground is so dry it might repel water instead of absorb it.

“Know your soil. If we're looking at a lot of surface runoff – if the ground's not going take it up, that would be something for concern,” Kubesch said. “But for a lot of us, it'd be good to have seed securely in the soil ahead of the rain.”   ∆

MARY HIGHTOWER

UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS