Officials at South Dakota State University Extension say that the recent rainfall across the region has made a big impact on the drought across the state.

Around one inch of rain fell in Yankton over the weekend, with other areas in the state seeing as much as 10 inches on some crop acres, according to Laura Edwards, SDSU Extension climate field specialist.

She added that the trend in the region during the past several weeks has been significant drought improvement and the concern now is not for a short-term drought.

“There is a little bit of concern with the drought in the long term, due to soil moistures,” Edwards said. “This could become more of an impact in the growing season. But, as of now, I’m not too worried about the drought in the Yankton area.”

She added that the cooler temperatures are also impacting farming.

“The cooler temperatures impacts agriculture, gardens and those kinds of things,” Edwards said. “Standing water is now one of the concerns we have from the weekend. Some of the flash flooding across the state could impact water ponding up in fields.”

She added that flash flooding can erode soils in a field and move seeds around, which could result in farmers needing to replant their crops.

“Longer-term flooding in a field brings on different issues and can hurt any kind of crop that’s starting to grow there,” Edwards said. “Any standing water that is emerged in a field for longer than two days is an item concern. If that’s the case, farmers need to look at that and consider what they can do, as far as replanting.”

She also cautioned that farmers looking at the National Drought Monitor might not see a change in the drought level for several weeks.

“The monitor has some unwritten rules and really can only improve an area by one drought category each week,” Edwards said. “So it may take some time for improvements to show up in the drought monitor, but I expect improvements to be made again this week.”

She added that the eastern side of South Dakota has made big gains this spring, which has led to a dramatically improved drought situations. However, Edwards noted that drought impacts could emerge quickly on the west side of the state as the area enters its dry summer season.

Despite the heavy rainfall across the area in recent days, Edwards said it’s still too early to project crop yields for this season.

“Some of the fields that have been damaged could still have their crops be replanted,” she said. “Farmers should consult their crop insurance agents on the details on what replanting might mean for crop insurance coverage.”

The weather forecast this week calls for more rain for Yankton, which could pose problems for farmers. In fact, the National Weather Service gas issued a flash flood watch for an area that includes Clay, Turner and Union counties through early Thursday morning.

“Conditions aren’t going to let up, at least not in the short term,” she said. “The additional rainfall creates issues with crop insurance because some crops might not qualify for coverage. Hopefully farmers planted most of their corn in the previous week or two.”

Connie Strunk, SDSU Extension plant pathology field specialist said corn and soybeans can generally handle about 48 hours of being completely submerged under water before they start to decline.

“However, that 48 hours number is with overcast skies and cooler temperatures,” she said. “The sun and warmer temperatures can change that number and can change the outlook on plants.”

Strunk said farmers looking to replant crops after the rainfall need to check with their crop insurance agents and look into what herbicides they put down last fall to see if there are any restrictions on crop rotation and replanting.

“If it continues to rain like it has been, we’re really starting to get close to the end of full days of crop insurance coverage,” Strunk said. “Some farmers in some areas also have not been able to get into the fields yet because it has been so wet.”

In addition to the rainfall only making impacts on farmers and the drought, releases from Gavins Point Dam have also been reduced following the heavy rain.

“Gavins Point releases have been reduced over the last few days from 24,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) to 15,000 cfs,” Jody Farhat, chief of the Missouri River Water Management Division, said in a statement. “Heavy rain across the basin increased flows on many of the tributaries below the system of reservoirs. Gavins Point releases are scheduled to be reduced to 12,000 cfs Wednesday morning.”

Releases were reduced by 3,000 cfs from Sunday to Tuesday.