Latest Drought Monitor Shows Seventy Five Percent of Oklahoma in Drought as 2017 Closes Out

Dec 29, 2017

Southeastern Oklahoma has received some rainfall in recent days- and that has lessened the level of drought in that part of the state of Oklahoma. However, northwestern counties have continued dry- and the result is that now three fourths of Oklahoma is in at least D1 Drought or worse as we end 2017. The 75% drought total is up from 65% a week earlier- as seen in the Weekly Drought Monitor map above.

Minimal precipitation is in the forecast for the next few days while arctic air will roll into Oklahoma- and the cold wind chills will envelope all of the state by Monday morning- January first.

Wind chills could go as low as fourteen below in the Bartlesville area according to the Tulsa National Weather Service Office- while the Oklahoma City office sees wind chills to zero in Durant and two below in Ardmore that same morning.

The map below captures what the NWS office in Oklahoma City is currently thinking.

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Video: Seeing the Whole Season: How Continuous Crop Modeling Is Changing Breeding

Plant breeding has long been shaped by snapshots. A walk through a plot. A single set of notes. A yield check at the end of the season. But crops do not grow in moments. They change every day.

In this conversation, Gary Nijak of AerialPLOT explains how continuous crop modeling is changing the way breeders see, measure, and select plants by capturing growth, stress, and recovery across the entire season, not just at isolated points in time.

Nijak breaks down why point-in-time observations can miss critical performance signals, how repeated, season-long data collection removes the human bottleneck in breeding, and what becomes possible when every plot is treated as a living data set. He also explores how continuous modeling allows breeding programs to move beyond vague descriptors and toward measurable, repeatable insights that connect directly to on-farm outcomes.

This conversation explores:

• What continuous crop modeling is and how it works

• Why traditional field observations fall short over a full growing season

• How scale and repeated measurement change breeding decisions

• What “digital twins” of plots mean for selection and performance

• Why data, not hardware, is driving the next shift in breeding innovation As data-driven breeding moves from research into real-world programs, this discussion offers a clear look at how seeing the whole season is reshaping value for breeders, seed companies, and farmers, and why this may be only the beginning.