Dry conditions continue across the Carolinas, and now it is starting to show up on the Drought Monitor. To get details, I am talking with Corey Davis from the state climate office of North Carolina. What are we seeing as far as maturation rates for some of these crops with these dry conditions?

“Well, we’ve seen from North Carolina and South Carolina this week that the soybean harvest is proceeding ahead of the average. And one big reason for that is that those soybeans have reached maturity a little bit sooner than they might otherwise do in this particular year. And there’s a few reasons for that. When it comes to soybeans, there’s a combination of temperatures and sunlight. It’s kind of a tug of war. In a year like this, when you have warmer, sunny days, that tends to lead to faster maturation, but also cooler weather can slow down the maturation. And we know we have had some cooler weather over the past week or two. In this case, I think those sunny afternoons have probably been winning the tug of war, because we’re seeing those soybeans get maturity a little bit sooner. And I think the dry weather has been a part of that as well. With not much moisture left, that’s not giving more time to fill those seed pods. So instead, they are pretty much ready. So the farmers have taken full advantage of this dry weather and been able to start getting those soybeans out of the fields. And of course, at this time of the year, the soybeans are turning yellow. The silks on the corn are turning brown. For some people, they might think, oh, no, those look really dry, but nope, that’s just how those crops look at this time of the year.”

And how does cotton look? I know for those fields that were in the path of Helene, they suffered some damage. For the other ones, what are we seeing?

“Yeah, really mixed conditions for cotton across the Carolinas. In North Carolina, we’re only seeing about 13% of the cotton has been harvested at this point. Typically, we’d be closer to 30%. At this time of the year.”