USA - Dry Spell: Developing drought puts pressure on local farmers
As drought conditions worsen in the Texas plains, farmers in the region are beginning to fear for the worst.
Wednesday, Feb. 7 will mark three months with no significant precipitation in Lubbock, according to the National Weather Service. David Brauer, director of the Cropping Systems Research Laboratory which studies crop and livestock production common to semi-arid regions, said this weather pattern was somewhat predictable.
The National Oceanic Atmospheric Agency has been predicting La Niña weather conditions in the southern Pacific Ocean since late summer and early fall, he said.
“La Niña’s tend to bring warm, dry temperatures in the southwest part of the United States and guess what? That’s what our weather’s been this winter,” Brauer said. “The good thing about La Niña is there’s no real predictable pattern of how it affects the weather during the summer.”
Spring, however, looks as if it could also be dry, he said. It’s possible this could change, he said, but NOAA has been predicting the continuation of La Niña through at least parts of the spring.
Winter wheat has already felt the effects of the drought, Brauer said. He would be surprised if any non-irrigated winter wheat had a significant yield.
“For wheat farmers right now, it looks pretty bad,” Brauer said. “The conditions of the wheat fields are being reported as…low and declining, and if we don’t get precipitation in the next month that trend will just continue.”
Glen Ritchie, associate professor of crop physiology, said although he is expecting little yield from non-irrigated winter wheat, the impact of the drought on cotton and other crops is not yet irreversible.
“A lot depends on how long (the drought) goes. A week of rainfall in February or March or April is completely going to change the outlook on it,” Ritchie said. “If the weather patterns continue on into May and June, then we’re going to see a dramatic decrease in cotton production and crop production in general here in the high plains.”
Wolf Kuhlemeier, communications director for West Texas Growers & Producers Association, a collective for produce and vegetable farmers, said he owns a produce and vegetable farm. Soil condition is crucial in droughts.
“The biggest issue I think that faces everybody, and I think this probably even effects the cotton and wheat and people like that, is, you know when the winds blow and it’s so dry, it’s very easy to effect the soil quality because it blows off and it erodes very easily in the wind,” Kuhlemeier said. “So I think anybody who is trying to kind of survive the drought will really have to be extra careful about their soil quality.”
Ritchie said rain must fall by late May, or preferably earlier, to ensure there is enough moisture in the soil. There needs to be enough moisture to germinate plants, he said, and the cutoff for germination in cotton is the beginning of June.
“You have to have enough moisture when you plant (cotton) otherwise you’re not going to have the plant come up at all. Then, you’ve got to also have enough moisture when it starts to flower and put out the fruit or you’re going to produce a lot of stems and not any fruit,” Ritchie said. “It’s very water tolerant but it’s very sensitive to water at specific times in the season.”
The dry soil condition can also lead to other consequences, said Marah Walls, president of collegiate FFA and senior agricultural education major from Ingram.
“Without crops, we’ll have barren soil, so that leaves the soil exposed for more erosion, so all these dust storms affects people’s health, allergies,” Walls said. “If we can’t have cover crops the soil is just going to keep blowing up in the air.”
From a fruits and vegetable standpoint, the drought hasn’t had a significant effect yet. If the drought continues to persist though, Kuhlemeir said, the effects of the drought will be especially severe on produce and vegetable crops.
“The big issue for us is there’s no replacement for a natural rain,” Kuhlemeir said. “You can pull all the water you want from the aquifer or city supplies, but nothing replaces a natural rain as far as replacing nutrients and having the better influence on crop themselves.”
The draining aquifer is another long-term issue, Walls said.
“Of course we’re going to need irrigation but we try to offset that as much as we can I feel like with natural rain water, so with the lack of that, farmers have to use more irrigation and where is this irrigation, this water coming from? Aquifers,” Walls said. “The Ogallalla, the big one up here, it’s being drained more and more quickly, and the thing is, once it’s gone, it’s gone.”
The issue is compounded by the financial storms farmers have to weather, she said, and the insurance policies they face in years with no growth.
“To claim crop insurance you have to show that you actually tried growing the crop. So they’re still having to irrigate all of their crops even though they know that they won’t grow and they know that they won’t be able to sell them,” Walls said. “So one, it’s wasting our water, and two, they’re still not getting any return. They physically have to do this so they can get any money that year to feed their families.”
The effects of facing a drought are hard on farmers and their families, Bethany Ballard, collegiate FFA vice-president and senior agricultural education major from Sadler, said. Her family has been farming for generations, she said, and the drought of 2011 affected her family financially and emotionally.
“It really takes a toll if your livestock aren’t producing what they should be producing and puts a hole in your pocketbook for sure,” Ballard said.
Brauer said there are steps farmers can take to mitigate the effects of drought. He recommends that farmers take into account their irrigation potential and water available, and concentrate it onto a more limited number of acres. There’s a good chance a fair amount of water will be needed early in the season, he said, to make up for what’s not in the soil.
“It’s better to stay on the side of caution during a La Nina year,” Brauer said.
Ritchie similarly said that farmers should first focus where they have the best capability to irrigate, rather than overextending themselves. When we start getting additional rain, farmers can expand from there, he said.
Despite the current weather patterns and predictions, Ritchie said there is still a chance the situation will resolve itself.
“We’ve had other years that looked like they’re going to be really dry, then in April or May we start getting rainfall and you know, every year we’ve had some period of time where it looked like we were getting a drought,” Ritchie said. “And usually those are mitigated by a big rainfall.”
Just being a farmer means you are the eternal optimist, Kuhlemeir said. You can’t grow anything and expect it to be controlled every year, he said. The only thing they can do is hope for the best.
“The only way to compensate for this is to maintain a positive attitude,” Kuhlemeir said. “So it didn’t rain today, maybe it’ll rain tomorrow. Keep going, do the best you can and eventually the powers to be will take control and give us what we need.”
Source - http://www.dailytoreador.com
