Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Jeff Miller Recaps The 2015 Farming Season – AG Matters

In a nutshell, the 2015 growing season was wet, dry, very wet and very dry; in that order. Cornell Cooperative Extension's Jeff Miller looks back on the year, April through harvest and the resulting crop averages.

We had an extremely cold winter that spilled into the month of April, frost seemed to exit soils later, perching water tables (in our wetter soils) making the plow layer wetter than one might think based on rainfall during the month. This made it difficult to plant new hay seedings or spring grains like oats at least on our heavier soils.

The month of May was slightly above average for temperature and slightly below average for rainfall providing growers with conditions that were suitable for planting annual crops like corn, soybeans and early planted vegetables in a timely fashion. There were also some harvest windows for grass hay but cold spring temperatures and little rainfall didn’t produce very much early grass hay yields.

Then there was the month of June which was extremely wet (8 inches) which is almost twice the average. This hampered some growers attempts to harvest alfalfa hay fields and interrupted annual crop planting efforts. Much of the yield losses that farmers experienced this season were caused by soil saturation during the month of June and its impact on crop growth and development.

This extremely wet period was followed by 2 ½ months of very dry conditions combined with higher than average temperatures. We amassed more growing degree days this season than any of the 20+ years that I have been recording local weather conditions.

Most growers have indicated that corn silage yields were lower than normal. Grass hay yields were less but alfalfa hay yields were average to slightly greater than normal. Soybean yields have been mixed but mostly 10 bushels less per acre than average. It is a bit early to get a good reading on corn grain yields yet but, early harvest results point to average to slightly better than average yields. Our local apple crop was excellent this year both in number and size. Strawberry yield and quality were mixed with some late frost and the wet weather in June. Blueberry yields were also mixed with some areas having significant winter injury. Vegetable production yield and quality were good on most of our local farms because they had the ability to irrigate when necessary. Sweet corn yields were down because they are not irrigated.

SOURCE: Cornell Cooperative Extension - Jeff Miller