Soil Moisture and Rainfall

Today I took a little roadtrip to Nashville, IL.  With melting snow and rain falling, you could think that soil moisture must be very good.  I looked up the 90 day rainfall maps on national weather Service web site.  It shows most of Illinois is normal to slightly below normal. Click on the maps to see the amounts better.  Seeing that many areas are as much as 4 inches below normal might raise a concern, but at this time of year we can catch up fairly quickly.  The few deep borings I have done this winter would lead me to believe that moisture is not a concern at all right now.  Asa always, timely summer rainfall can make a big difference for growing crops.

Last 90 days Departure from Normal