A bird’s eye view of the drought of ‘24

By Matt Reese

We kicked off the 2024 harvest in an unfortunate way this year with our Cab Cam Series.

John Settlemyer, who farms in Warren and Clinton counties, was kind enough to take me up in a plane to get a bird’s eye view of see some of worst drought areas in Ohio. Our flight path took us from Lancaster in Fairfield County over Circleville in Pickaway County, then southeast through Hocking, Vinton, and Athens counties on Sept. 5. We flew in a 1973 Cessna 182P, originally with a 235-horsepower motor, upgraded to 300-horse.

“For me this is extreme drought and it’s dangerous. There are so many possible fire locations. There’s fuel everywhere looking for reason to burn and there’s no rain in sight,” Settlemyre said. “it’s just amazing how dry it is for this early in September. We are just at the start of September here and we did see a few combines running today, including down in that Pickaway County area, which shows how far ahead of schedule are we for some of these folks in southern Ohio.… Continue reading