Dust Bowl In Oklahoma

Drought in southwest Kansas wheat fields is worst since Dust Bowl

In southwest Kansas, the wheat fields look more brown than gold.</p><p>The drought-stricken corner of the state is following one of its best-yielding years with one of its worst.</p><p>Farmers say there are good seasons and there are bad seasons, and there&#x92;s nothing to do but pray for rain and try again. But with the harvest projected to produce 27 percent less wheat than last year, there is inevitable disappointment in Kansas.</p><p>&#x93;This time of year &#x85; the wheat fields should be green and lush and growing and they&#x92;re not,&#x94; said Aaron Harries, director of marketing for Kansas Wheat. &#x93;The fields are scattered with spots of green, most of the crop has withered up and died. It looks like a desert.&#x94; </p><p>Harries said the rainfall deficits in those areas are the most severe since the 1930s Dust Bowl days. </p><p>Scorching temperatures over the past week, combined with dry conditions, have caused this year&#x92;s Kansas crop to reach maturity about a week earlier than normal. That&#x92;s prompted the combines and harvest workers to hit the fields and fill grain elevators quickly.</p><p>Recently, droughts have also been an international problem. France, one of the major wheat producers in Europe, is suffering from its worst drought on record. Last August, Russia banned all grain exports after a devastating dry season destroyed crops, but is allowing the ban to expire July 1.</p><p>The increased demand for food worldwide has caused wheat prices to skyrocket. According to a report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the cost for a bushel of wheat in mid-May was $8.19 &#x97; almost double the national average from May 2010. </p><p>Harries said the increase will help offset some farmers&#x92; losses and was partially caused by fears of a decreased supply. </p><p>Although retail food prices are rising, the cost of wheat is seldom the main culprit. The wheat content in food items is a relatively small part of total manufacturing and marketing costs.</p><p>But every penny a bushel is significant in Kansas, the nation&#x92;s largest producer of hard red winter wheat. It&#x92;s the state&#x92;s top agricultural export, valued at more than $1.1 billion in 2009. </p><p>The drought has also devastated the wheat crops in Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas. The worst in Kansas is confined to the vital southwest and south-central regions, which produced 40 percent of the state&#x92;s winter wheat crop last year. </p><p>&#x93;Typically our wheat is usually 6 to 8 inches taller, and it&#x92;s usually thick enough you can&#x92;t see the ground,&#x94; said Gary Millershaski, a farmer in Lakin, Kan., 20 miles west of Garden City. &#x93;There are certain fields, I don&#x92;t want to say it&#x92;s barren, but it looks like it was never fertilized. It just looks like the bad farmers are farming.&#x94;</p><p>Statewide, the USDA predicts the average yield will drop from 45 to 34 bushels an acre<strong>.</strong> Millershaski said last year was the best-yielding winter wheat crop he&#x92;s ever had; he expects this year to be his worst.</p><p>&#x93;We had yields last year of over 60 bushels an acre. To put it in perspective, last year we were scrambling to find more trucks,&#x94; he said. &#x93;That&#x92;s not going to be the problem this year.&#x94;</p><p>Wheat is his livelihood; he generally plants 2,500 to 3,500 acres per year. His secondary crop is usually the grain sorghum milo, but he&#x92;s not sure he&#x92;ll put any in the ground because the soil is so dry. He&#x92;s already put in corn, but he says some of it&#x92;s not going to come up. </p><p>He&#x92;s not expecting to average more than 20 bushels an acre from this wheat crop. He compared the situation to an office worker being told that even though he&#x92;s used to making $10 an hour, times are tough, and he&#x92;s only going to make $3 an hour now.</p><p>&#x93;If you want to eat, you keep working,&#x94; he said. </p><p>According to David Miskus, a meteorologist with the Climate Prediction Center, a strong La Ni&#xF1;a pattern this winter shifted the spring rain north of the southern Plains. While recent rains helped the wheat in northwest Kansas, the driest spots of the state got no relief. </p><p>&#x93;In late May, finally some of that moisture did come down &#x85; but southwestern Kansas consistently missed it,&#x94; he said. &#x93;The damage was done. Winter wheat from Kansas needed that moisture in March, April and early May, and it didn&#x92;t get any.&#x94;</p><p>Brad Rippey, an agricultural meteorologist with the USDA, said a farmer from southwest Kansas called him last week with concerns about his summer crops.</p><p>&#x93;He&#x92;s had it up to here with the wind, the heat, the drought &#x97; he&#x92;s hanging in there, but there&#x92;s a lot of stress on those guys,&#x94; Rippey said. &#x93;He feels like they can&#x92;t catch a break. Last night he said they could smell rain, see the lightning, but they got barely enough to dampen down the dust.&#x94;</p><p>On a scale from one to 10, with 10 being a historic drought, Rippey ranked the southwest corner of Kansas at a nine. But he said the state as a whole wasn&#x92;t in such bad shape. He pointed out that while a recent USDA report rated 54 percent of the state&#x92;s wheat crop as in very poor or poor condition, 17 percent was still very good or excellent.</p><p>Even so, Rippey cautioned farmers against expecting relief too soon.</p><p>According to the latest three-month forecast from the Climate Prediction Center, there will be persistent dryness through the end of the month &#x97; but there is the possibility of rain in July and August. He said if the drought outlook is accurate, the coming planting season will be better than the last. </p><p>While he thinks farmers realize there are going to be good years and bad years, there have been a few more tough years than expected in the last couple decades.</p><p>&#x93;Some of these folks are a little weather weary,&#x94; he said. &#x93;It&#x92;s depressing; they can&#x92;t seem to get what they&#x92;d call &#x91;normal weather&#x92; anymore. It&#x92;s always extreme &#x97; too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry &#x97; always too something.&#x94;</p><p>Rippey said it&#x92;s become undeniably warmer and wetter over the last three or four decades.</p><p>&#x93;I think in the short term, you have to be prepared for extremes,&#x94; he said. &#x93;This seems to be the new climate calling card, at least in the near term, and it&#x92;s going to be an unfortunate fact of life.&#x94; </p><p>Art Barnaby, an agricultural economist with Kansas State University Research and Extension, said most wheat farmers have prepared by having crop insurance.</p><p>He said 90 percent of the wheat-producing acres in Kansas are insured. Coverage can range from 50 to 85 percent of expected revenue, usually falling in the 70 to 75 percent range. </p><p>Barnaby said in a down year, typical coverage is enough to cover production costs like fuel and seeds. But for the vast majority of farmers who rent some of their machinery and land, that isn&#x92;t enough to cover all their fixed costs.</p><p>&#x93;Farmers who do have land payments or machinery payments, some of those aren&#x92;t getting an insurance check big enough to cover their losses too,&#x94; he said. &#x93;The ones in this business know they&#x92;re going to have some short years ... but it&#x92;s part of what it means to farm.&#x94;</p><p>Vance Ehmke, a farmer in Lane County, said many local farm acres have been appraised at a two to five bushel yield potential. </p><p>In recent weeks, the county has been flooded with crop insurance agents.</p><p>&#x93;Our two (insurance) guys took us out to lunch in town at the bowling alley, and there were about 20 other insurance agents there,&#x94; he said. &#x93;It was wall to wall insurance adjusters, all in the county doing what our guys are doing &#x97; looking at the fields.&#x94; </p><p>Ehmke said because of early seeding and some luck, he&#x92;s only abandoning 15 percent of his wheat crop this season, but he is expecting to lose most of the milo he&#x92;s planted.</p><p>Even though he expects this to be one of the least profitable years he&#x92;s had running the farm, he said he&#x92;s still happy to be staying in the black.</p><p>&#x93;We&#x92;re feeling as good as we can about the situation,&#x94; he said. &#x93;We are bleeding, but we are not yet dead.

The Secret of a Successful Rain Dance? Timing, Timing, Timing ...

, The Houston area – not to mention a grand swath of the south-central U.S. – has experienced one of the driest periods in recorded history and it looks like any change in the weather pattern will be slow to occur over the next month or two as strong upper-level high pressure remains over the area.   The record dry spell is mainly being contributed to by a strong La Niña event (cold Pacific water) during the past winter into the spring.  Even though La Niña is quickly dissipating, the residual effects of that weather pattern combined with very dry soil are enhancing the record-setting dry conditions over much of Texas.  Dry soil tends to heat up faster due to evaporation (and lower specific heat values) resulting in hotter ground, hotter weather and higher pressure well above the surface.  Higher pressure aloft also creates sinking air which limits cloud cover and blocks rain-producing weather systems from moving into the region.  Additionally, the sinking air of a high pressure system further exacerbates the situation, as sinking air heats up as it sinks and compresses.

The big question now is when will we see a break in the pattern?   New long-range data indicates very little change in the weather pattern over the next week or two.  Daytime temperatures in the Houston area will likely average in the upper 90s to low 100s this week into the weekend.  There are signs that the upper high may break down a little as we move into the fourth week of June which may provide the focus for a better chance of rain.  Confidence this far out is still on the low side, but at least there’s a glimmer of some hope by the end of the month.

In the extended forecast, analog data from the past indicates we are mimicking very closely the years of 1971 and 2008.  During those years we saw drier than normal weather in July followed by a wetter than normal August, and this is the preferred direction we are following now based on current trends.  As a result, we may see a little more rain in July but for the most part rainfall amounts are forecast to remain below normal.  Not until August that we’re forecasting to see an abrupt change in the weather pattern which could result in frequent periods of locally heavy rainfall.  Let’s just hope that doesn’t come in the form of a tropical cyclone!

[Note: portions of Mr. Schmude’s forecast also appear today in EricBerger’s SciGuy blog at chron.

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