While states along the East Coast are recuperate from tempest and flood impairment due to Hurricane Irene , put forward farther west , like Texas , are still trying to grapple with devastating drought conditions . After thefailure of many summertime cropsdue to drouth , farmers now have good intellect to interest that they wo n’t make a winter wheat crop either , according to experts at the Texas AgriLife Extension Service .
“ There are some real vexation right now , not only about potentially getting the craw up in the future , but about what kind of yield potential we are buy the farm to have with the crop if we do , ” tell Dr. Todd Baughman , AgriLife Extension agronomist for Texas ’ Rolling Plains part .
The care focuses on soil - moisture reserves , as the bulk of wintertime wheat berry is set during September and October , Baughman says . Without good soil moisture , the crop will not even egress .
The pauperism for better soil wet is find not just for caryopsis product , but for livestockforageproduction , too , as winter wheat is also commonly rely upon for fallgrazing , he says . And wheat berry producer have reason to be concerned throughout most of Texas .
“ If you do n’t get it up and growing , that ’s going to confine your fall grazing , which is really going to ache you from a cattle - performance stand , ” Baughman says . “ That ’s believably the No . 1 care that we ’ve got right now . ”
But for those who need grain product , the want of land wet is causing a lot of anxiety , as well .
“ If we do n’t build up some soil moisture to grow this crop , there ’s business that it ’s going to bleed out of water just like the cotton plant crop has done this year because it wo n’t have any real inscrutable wet to avail with the return potential , ” Baughman says .
Many Farmer plant wheat for both grazing and food grain output , pullingcattleoff fields in time for the crop to make cereal . But wheat for shaving is an even higher priority this year because the drought has cause summer grazing to become non - existent and continued feeding has exhausted hay supplies .
“ Typically , what you ’ll see is that somewhere between mid - September to the heart of October is the prime planting prison term for grazing , ” Baughman explains . “ Of of course , we would really care to be planting justly around the first of October . For our food grain guys , most planting will start somewhere in the centre of October to Thanksgiving . That would be the prime clip that we would like to implant the harvest as a texture - only craw . ”
But even those planning wheat as a grain - only crop could carry into trouble this class , he says . This is because November typically indicate the start of a dry clock time of year for most of the commonwealth ’s wheat - grow regions . If moisture reserves are n’t already built up before winter , the chances to make a undecomposed metric grain harvest will be greatly decrease .
“ The driest calendar month , if you look at historic weather disc , will be December , January and February , ” Baughman say . “ November will be slightly behind those , so if we do n’t get any rain from now through the first of November , then the opportunity of really establish that deep moisture up is limited even in a normal yr . ”
And this has been far from a normal year , he enounce .
