Despite Drought in Southern Wisconsin, Crop Researchers say Average Yields are Expected this Year

Nov 30, 2021

By Hope Kirwan

The 2021 growing season was one of the driest years in recent decades for southern Wisconsin.

But some crop researchers in the state say genetic developments have helped keep crop yields from suffering the way they have during previous droughts.

Many southern Wisconsin counties had drought conditions similar to 2012 and 2005, according to meteorologist Jaclyn Anderson with the National Weather Service in Milwaukee.

National Weather Service data shows the southeastern region continues to be nearly 10 inches below normal precipitation levels for the year. Anderson said this deficit has continued despite getting more persistent storms this fall. She said heavy rainfall events in August did little to make up the prolonged deficit because so much of the precipitation ends up running off the land instead of being absorbed in the soil.

Joe Lauer, agronomy professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, reviewed historical weather data at the UW Research Station in Arlington to see how dry 2021 was. The statistics date back to 1963.

He found this summer was similar to some of the driest years the station had on record, including 1988 when the station saw some of its worst corn yields.

"In the southern two tiers of counties in Wisconsin, we had some pretty dramatic drought conditions that farmers were experiencing. And it really didn't let up until probably the end of September," Lauer said. "We were dry most of that time. But having said that, we seemed to get a little bit of rain ... that allowed the crop to keep going."

Lauer said those timely rains are part of why this year’s corn yields were mostly unaffected.

The November crop production report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Ag Statistics Service forecast the state's average corn yield would be 172 bushels per acre this year. That's one bushel less than 2020's average.

Crop experts have long believed that corn fields need at least an inch of rain per week between July and September to support crop development.

"This year, we just didn't get that inch a week," Lauer said. "We did have three weeks where we did get that inch, but that's only three out of 14 weeks that we were able to get that. But we seemed to get enough."

Lauer thinks new traits bred into modern day corn hybrids are helping crops get by with less water.

He said researchers bred for a trait to stop a pest called the European Corn borer, which creates tunnels in the stalks of corn plants that disrupt the flow of water from roots to leaves. And that has helped corn plants not have to work as hard to circulate moisture.

"That water molecule can get to where it needs to be in the plant and cool (the plant) down and make it a lot more efficient," Lauer said. "So I think that's one of the things that help these modern corn hybrids is just the efficiency of being able to get water within the plant where it's needed to keep it cool and to keep it growing and photosynthesizing and ultimately producing grain yield."

Chuck Steiner is director of Pioneer Farm, UW-Platteville's research station. He said the farm was in moderate drought for most of the season but received timely rains throughout the summer that helped keep their corn and alfalfa crops from feeling the heat stress. But he also agrees that modern hybrids have made a huge difference in the crop's ability to withstand less precipitation.

"There are ones that have either genes related to drought tolerance or drought resistance and the hybrids we produce now, I think, can withstand longer periods of drought without having a significantly negative impact on yield," Steiner said.

Click here to see more...

Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”