Iowa farmers preparing fields for crops

Warm temperatures and mostly dry conditions over much of Iowa allowed farmers to continue anhydrous ammonia applications and till soil during the week that ended on Sunday.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Statistics Service said some lingering frost was reported in northern Iowa fields. Anhydrous ammonia supply shortages were reported in areas of southwest Iowa.

Temperatures for the week as a whole averaged from about five degrees above normal over the southeast corner of the state to 10 degrees above normal over the northwest corner. Precipitation totals varied from only a few sprinkles over Dubuque and Clinton counties in the east to 1.32 inches at Underwood in Pottawattamie County.

The statewide average precipitation was 0.44 inches while normal for the week is 0.64 inches.

Topsoil moisture levels were rated 3 percent very short, 25 percent short, 70 percent adequate and 2 percent surplus. Subsoil moisture levels were rated 3 percent very short, 24 percent short, 71 percent adequate and 2 percent surplus.

Those levels were significantly higher than the 2014 percentage on the same date, when two-thirds of Iowa reported short to very short subsoil moisture.

The very mild weather early in the week thawed the last of the winter's frozen soils across northern Iowa. Soil temperatures at the 4-inch depth were averaging mostly in the mid to upper 40s across the state as of Sunday.

Seventeen percent of Iowa's oat crop has been sown - four days ahead of last year, but four days behind the five-year average. The state produced 3.52 million bushels of oats in 2014, down 11 percent from 2013 and the second lowest oat production on record, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service,