Soybeans Shaping Up Well, But Active Hurricane Season Is A Concern, Ross Says
MARY HIGHTOWER
LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS
This year’s soybean crop progress is on par with 2023’s record-breaking pace, but the forecast for an above-average hurricane season means the Atlantic Basin could have a say in how the year ends, said Jeremy Ross, extension soybean agronomist for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture.
Arkansas’ statewide yield average set a record in 2023 at 54 bushels per acre. The Atlantic hurricane season typically peaks during harvest season.
The National Agricultural Statistics Service report for the week ending Sunday said that soybean planting was 92 percent complete, one tick behind last year’s 93 percent, and well ahead of the 76 percent five-year average. Soybean emergence was at 84 percent, compared to 85 percent in 2023 and the 66 percent average across five years.
Twenty percent of the soybeans were blooming, compared to 17 percent last year and the 5 percent five-year average, NASS said.
“We're sitting pretty similar to where we were last year and we were anywhere from 10 to 14 days ahead of the five-year average on progress from planting all the way through maturity and harvest,” Ross said on Thursday. “I'm not going to say we're sitting on another record year. It all depends on what July and August give us.”
Dry with a chance of hurricanes
July and August tend to be hot, dry months in Arkansas.
In past years, “when it turns off hot and dry, farmers are irrigating everything – cotton, corn, rice, beans – you’ve got that tug of war going and beans usually take a back seat because farmers have more money invested in those other crops,” he said. “If we do have a drought, beans may suffer a little because of the irrigation demand.”
However, with the ample rain this spring, “I think we’ve recharged most of our reservoirs,” Ross said.
Those dry spells have also been punctuated by hurricane and tropical storm remnants that push up from the Gulf of Mexico, as Hurricane Laura did in 2020. The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season opened June 1. The average season peak occurs in September.
Hurricane season outlook
Last month, the Climate Prediction Center, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, released its Atlantic hurricane season outlook, predicting an 85 percent chance for an above-normal season. NOAA is forecasting a range of 17 to 25 total named storms. Of those, eight to 13 are forecast to become hurricanes, including four to seven major hurricanes.
“The one thing that did concern me was the report hurricane season might be a little bit more active this year,” he said. “We can go through the whole year have a record crop and get a hurricane that blows in here and puts everything on the ground in a matter of 24 to 48 hours.
“I still say farmers are professional gamblers and just go ahead and roll the dice,” Ross said. “We got what Mother Nature's got. We just have to ride it out.”
Arkansas is faring better than other parts of the United States.
“It’s still wet in the Midwest and they've really been struggling trying to get planted this spring,” Ross said. “Overall, we're sitting pretty good. Let’s just finish up planting in the next couple of weeks and hope the hurricanes just kind of fizzle.”
Experimental tool
The National Weather Service will be publishing an experimental visualization for hurricane forecasts later in the season. The familiar maps showing the “cone of uncertainty” indicating a storm’s potential movement will include inland watches and warnings starting Aug 15. Previously, the maps only included coastal warnings and watches. ∆
MARY HIGHTOWER: University of Arkansas