COLLEGE STATION – Despite recent rain showers, the fourth drought in five years continues in Texas and has cost the state's agricultural producers $223 million in the fall of 1999 and another $96 million in losses through the early part of 2000, economists with the Texas Agricultural Extension Service reported Friday.
"The fact is the entire state is in a mild to severe drought," said Dr. Travis Miller, an Extension agronomist. "Every reporting region in the state is in some phase of drought at this time. The fact that we have green vegetation on the surface in some areas doesn't mean we don't have a very dry soil profile. With the way the weather patterns have been going, indications are it's going to be drier than normal."
Producer losses so far in 2000 have resulted in $55 million in wheat losses, including 400,000 acres that weren't planted in the fall of 1999 and $14 million worth of crop that either never came up or has since died. The remaining dryland wheat crop is still vulnerable, officials said.
Extension economists have estimated an additional $12 million was spent in added irrigation due to the drought. Additional wheat grazing losses add up to $11 million, and livestock producers incurred an additional $18 million in added feed and water hauling expenses over what would have been expected for winter feeding, Extension officials said.
"We've gotten some rain recently; some parts of the state even have had more than average rainfall for February," said Dr. Mark Waller, an Extension economist. "But, February for some parts of the state is the lowest amount of rainfall they get for the year. It still doesn't amount to much. A lot of the state is still dry."
Corn and sorghum planting continues throughout the Blacklands region of the state and on into North Texas, with a few farmers already planting some cotton. Planting activity has yet to begin in the High Plains region of the state.
"Most people are not planting in dry ground, some are planting in moisture," Miller said. "But there's only about a foot of soil moisture and that will only last for a short period of time. The crop will come on up with what's there, but that won't last very long before it will begin to stress."
Miller said March typically is a dry month, but traditionally April has been the state's wettest month.
"The highest probability [of the most rain] is usually the third week of April," Miller said. "Most of the spring rains come when the warm Gulf Coast air meets a cold front coming down lasting until mid-April or mid- to late-May. La Nina has been holding those cold fronts back, and causing them to go around Texas. That's why we've missed most of the fall rains and we may miss some of our spring thunderstorms as well."
(Editor's note: The 1996 drought resulted in $2 billion in producer losses, while the 1998 drought caused $2.1 billion in producer losses.)