Too dry or too wet: What kind of growing season is worse for Ohio’s grain crops?  

By Vinayak S. Shedekar, Ohio State University and Rajveer Dhillon, Central State University

As we wrap up the 2025 harvest season, the two years in a row of drought keep me wondering: Which is worse — the drought or the wet weather? In other words, how do crop yields respond to a wet growing season versus a dry or excessively dry growing season? The standard answer from the scientist in me is “it depends”! This curiosity led us to dig a little deeper into Ohio’s recent history of wet versus dry weather and its connection to crop yields.

If you compare the years 2011, 2012, and 2013, they represent wet, dry, and normal weather (precipitation) conditions across Ohio. For example, 2011 brought record spring rains and planting delays, 2012 was marked by one of the worst summer droughts in de