A dry year in Kansas

It looks like history is repeating itself from last year. Planting trees has been difficult this year. We’ve been averaging about an inch of rain per month. I added a lot of organic material such as chips and manure to this soil a couple of years ago and it’s still extremely dry. Last year it wound up raining later in the year so I’m hoping that will happen again but I’m not counting on it.

I dug or should say that I tried to dig some post holes a couple of weeks ago here. I gave up after getting down 6". Hard as concrete and just as dry as your pictures. I filled the holes with water and hoped that would loosen the soil up a bit, havent had time to get back to it since.

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TurkeyCreekTrees,
Looks like the spring rains showed up. We got 1 1/2 inches so far. The worms are on top of the soil now. The dirt was so dry and it fell so fast lots of the water is running off instead of soaking in. Glad I have ponds to catch some water when it does this. My trees and your fence posts will go in a lot easier now. I’ve been watering my new trees I’m planting and they have been going in pretty slow. If this soaks in I can get these trees in pretty fast.

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We got maybe a 1/2" the other night so we werent quite as lucky. Chances over the coming week again so maybe we will get a bit more.

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Glad you got some rain. Sounds like more may be on the way.

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I’m south of you Clark and we are still dry. Got less than a quarter inch last night, it split and moved around us.

The last several years have been later than usual for us. Since the drought broke it seems like our spring rains have been a month behind.

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It still bone dry here. We got maybe a tad more than a tenth out of this last storm system (I’m estimating what I saw in a tin can at the orchard today.) It seems like everytime it rains it mostly goes around us. This is the driest spring I can remember.

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Little early for the jury to make a verdict, isn’t it? I bet your soil has a months worth of available water for your trees- or was winter that dry?

Up until now in my area we got about an inch of water per month. This 1 1/2 inches was overdue for sure.

This month of moisture has finally brought Massachusetts out of last years drought over most of the state. Hopefully the rains keep coming.

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We had a decent rain in Omaha. The weather is wet, cold and dreary. I have so many things to do during weekend which I can’t, but I keep telling myself that the rain is a good thing because plants need their water.

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This is one of our frequent dry winters. Dry here means no meaningful rain. Average is 0.5 inch per month. Even the weeds aren’t growing. But I like no weeds. If one has irrigation it’s a different perspective.

All I’d like rain for is to water the blueberries. I had a 150 day supply last fall and that’s down to 7 days.

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I’ve still got about 1.5 gallons of blueberries left in the freezer after eating them every morning since Nov. This native plant has never failed me- not for a single season, although extremely hot summers have sometimes reduced the usable crop.

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Winter was pretty dry. According to Weather Underground, Kansas City got 1.3" in Jan., 0.06" in Feb., and 0.91" in March. I’m a little south of Kansas City, and in my area, we really haven’t received any rain in March. Clark lives close to a different city, so his rainfall is a little different.

Normally, we plant trees in mud in March. The ground is dry and hard this year. It’s not been devastating or anything, but frustrating. But if we don’t start getting some rain, I won’t be planting any sweet corn, and farmers around here won’t be planting field corn either.

As you know, peach trees are very tolerant of drought (at least in our corn soil). I never water peach trees at planting. I did that this year, all the time thinking and encouraged by weather reports that rain is right around the corner. I’ve ended up losing a few of my peach trees I budded last fall, and some peach rootstocks I’ve moved. I may have lost one or two newly planted grafted varieties.

I’ve lost a couple apps of herbicide because it didn’t get watered in, and I’ve had to start watering the about 80 new trees I put in, which takes a lot of time, when I need to be doing other work this time of year.

I think CA got all our winter/early spring rain.

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Olpea,
We were lucky and I’ve been feverishly planting pear trees today. We did not wind up catching much water in the ponds ( not even 1/2". The rain soaked the ground and now it’s easy planting. The way we are going we would wind up with 15" for the year and I sure wouldn’t want to see that again. Our water levels have dropped over 2 feet. Small trees with under 2’ of roots would not stand a chance now let alone when July gets here. I’ve been watering every tree I put in up until this rain.

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I think we just got more hail than we did rain!

At this point if it’s moisture I’ll take it. Hail is not ideal with flowers on the trees.

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I suppose one advantage of living in a miserably cold Zone 3 climate, where the steady winter snow-cover lasts from mid or late-November usually to at least the end of March, is that when spring finally comes, at least there is lots of soil moisture to start the growing season. Every snowfall and rainfall over the winter is locked up in the snowpack, waiting for spring to be released. Right now the sunny areas of my garden are like mud-soup, and the semi-shady areas are still covered in melting snow so will soon turn into mud-soup. Maybe the ground will dry up enough to be workable by mid to late April.

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I suspect we lost anything that resembled a flower last night.

I sure hope spring doesn’t get pissed off at you for your early judgement, and blesses you with the rain you need.

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