Although Western Pennsylvania recently received much needed rainfall, the economic losses are beginning to mount for some producers.

In some areas, until recently, no significant rainfall occurred since early June. Lack of rainfall, combined with daytime temperatures in the 90s, has caused severe drought stress on growing crops. The greatest impact locally could be to hay and pasture acreage.

More variable losses are evident in other field crops depending upon planting date, soil types and fertility levels. Hay was in short supply last year and will be further reduced by the widespread drought hitting the principal crop producing states in the Midwest.

Producers that have cool season grass acreage in the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) should contact the Farm Service Agency at 724-482-4800, Ext. 2, or 724-775-2369, Ext. 2, with regards to haying or grazing the CREP land, as recent changes have made that a viable option.

The drought gripping the U.S. is the widest since 1956, according to new data released last week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Fifty-five percent of the continental U.S. was in a moderate to extreme drought by the end of June, NOAA’s National Climactic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., said in its monthly State of the Climate drought report. That’s the largest percentage since December 1956, when 58 percent of the country was covered by drought.

This summer, 80 percent of the U.S. is abnormally dry, and the report said the drought expanded in the West, Great Plains and Midwest last month with the 14th warmest and 10th driest June on record.

The nation’s corn and soybean belt has been especially hard hit over the past three months, the report said. That region has experienced its seventh warmest and 10th driest April-to-June period.

“Topsoil has dried out and crops, pastures and rangeland have deteriorated at a rate rarely seen in the last 18 years,” the report said.

The report is based on data going back to 1895 called the Palmer Drought Index, which feeds into the widely watched and more detailed U.S. Drought Monitor. It reported last week that 61 percent of the continental U.S. was in a moderate to exceptional drought.

However, the weekly Drought Monitor goes back only 12 years, so climatologists use the Palmer Drought Index for comparing droughts before 2000.

Luke Fritz is executive director of the Butler County Farm Service Agency.