Polk Precipitation Month Polk 2022 Water Year Polk Average October 2.57 2.23 November 0.39 1.08 December 0.25 0.85 January 0.13 0.53 February 0.02 0.56 March 1.01 1.42 April 2.71 2.67 May 4.64 4.89 June 3.08 4.29 July 6.1 3.78 August 0.84 3.4 September 2.39 2.36 Sum 24.13 28.06 Difference from Average -3.93
Figure 2. Polk Nebraska precipitation comparison 2022 vs. Average
Another stress that was prominent this season was the dramatic swings in temperature through the growing season. Figure 3 is a graph of daily high and low temperatures from the Polk weather station. From the graph we can see many spikes and dips in both high and low temperatures. On May 19 th , the high was 93 o F on May 20 th , the high was 68 o F and on the 21 st , the high was 59 o F. At this time, both corn and soybeans had emerged and were in the vegetative stage and the swings in temperatures were shocking the plants and causing stress because the plant did not know if it was going to grow or be dormant. There are several examples of this through the growing season and this was not an isolated incident. Another example later in the season was on July 23 rd the high temperature was 102 o F and the next day we had a high near average at 87 o F then on the 25 th the high temperature was 71 o F. At this point plants are all in the reproductive stage and once again are confused as to what they should be doing. Should these plants shut down because of heat, photosynthesize like crazy or shut down because it’s cold.
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