Transcripts

REPORTER: A new map, released this morning from the US Drought Monitor, shows more than half of Minnesota is now experiencing severe or extreme drought conditions. As Dan Crocker reports, it's had a big impact on many of the state's farmers and ranchers.

DAN CROCKER: Rachel Gray and her family raise beef cattle on their farm in Blackduck in Beltrami County in far North Central Minnesota. Right now, she says, they're grazing about 500 heifers, along with 17 bulls. But she says that's not going to last much longer.

RACHEL GRAY: We are currently running out of pasture, even though we've been very careful to manage those areas. It is like nothing we have seen up here.

DAN CROCKER: She says typically her land is wet, and grass is plentiful. But this year, she says, it's so dry, the grass just isn't growing. She's predicting she'll only be able to grow about a third of the hay they normally do to feed their livestock. She says that's forced her to reduce her herd.

RACHEL GRAY: We are pulling cattle and shipping early. We're not supposed to be shipping cattle until October. We don't have the feed or the pasture to feed these cattle up here right now.

DAN CROCKER: Gray says other ranchers she knows are weaning their calves a month or two early, and selling them. Others are selling cow and calf pairs, something she says hardly ever happens in her region. She says some ranchers are also mulling their futures, deciding whether to try to get work in town, or try to build back their herd for next year.

RACHEL GRAY: So these are some major decisions that farmers and ranchers up here are having to try to deal with, not only just getting your cattle fed and watered, and getting through the day, but then how do you continue on? What is your next step as far as your livelihood, your farm, and your business?

DAN CROCKER: Much of Beltrami County, where Gray ranches, is now classified as D3-- being in extreme drought. Most of western Minnesota is listed the next level down as severe drought. Almost all of the eastern half of the state is considered to be in moderate drought. Still dry, but not nearly as dry as the western part of the state.

Dave Nicolai, a University of Minnesota extension crop educator, calls it a tale of halves of Minnesota.

DAVE NICOLAI: It's just been hit and miss. And so really, what we're concerned about is the lack of a consistent statewide or areawide, or for that matter, even countywide rainfall pattern. So it's boom or bust.

DAN CROCKER: Nicolai says this is an especially critical time for the state's corn crop. Because the next few weeks is when the corn will pollinate.

DAVE NICOLAI: And if we are drought stressed in a lot of the corn crop in Minnesota, it will affect the yield. Because we won't get the proper kernel sets.

DAN CROCKER: And lower yields mean less money for farmers when they sell their crops at harvest. Luigi Romolo, the Minnesota State climatologist with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, says since March, rainfall across most of the state is 5 to 8 inches below normal. Still, he says, this isn't the most severe drought in recent years. He says it was actually drier in 2013 and 2007.

But he says this year, like a similar drought in 1988, intensified right in the middle of the growing season. Romolo says the hot weather has made the drought even worse, and there are more sky-high temperatures in the forecast next week.

LUIGI ROMOLO: When there's a lack of rainfall, drought sets in. And then if the temperatures are above normal, which they should be from the weekend onward, where we're expected to see another one of these little mini heatwaves. And then that should drive to intensify things further.

DAN CROCKER: Still, Romolo stresses that it's not time to panic yet. He says droughts are enigmatic and really hard to predict how long they will last.

LUIGI ROMOLO: Every time a drought flares up, you never know, is this going to be the worst drought ever? And it could be. Or it could be over in a month.

DAN CROCKER: Of course, that's a hard message for ranchers struggling to feed their livestock, or firefighters battling a 65-acre wildfire burning near Ely in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area wilderness. Governor Tim Walz said today that while the coronavirus pandemic may be winding down, an extended drought looks to be in store for Minnesota for the foreseeable future. Dan Crocker, NPR News, Duluth.