Drought tests state’s endurance yet again
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BY ART HOVEY / Lincoln Journal Star
Drought, which appeared to be on its way out of Nebraska in 2005, is on its way back in 2006.
A convergence of new developments Friday made the point pretty hard to miss:
* Three weeks from the start of the 2006 winter wheat harvest, federal forecasters offered the worst outlook for total bushels in four years and the second worst in the last 10 years.
* Gov. Dave Heineman cited a quick deterioration in field and forage conditions as he requested federal disaster status for eight western Nebraska counties.
* The state’s Climate Assessment Response Committee has scheduled a Thursday meeting in Lincoln to sort out the latest pressures on crop and livestock producers, drinking water systems and other moisture-dependent categories.
“The real tale of the tape, I think, has been the last 60 days,” said Mark Svoboda of the National Drought Mitigation Center.
“We didn’t have an over-abundant amount of moisture even during the fall and winter,” said Svoboda, based at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, “which was setting us up for the need for an abnormally wet spring to recharge our soil and recharge our batteries, if you will. That did not occur.”
If this feels like familiar territory, that’s because it is. The year 2003, for example, is the only exception to a pattern in which all the best wheat harvests of the last decade occurred before 2000.
Eating your Wheaties might be a more expensive proposition in the months ahead.
“We’re, of course, disappointed that producers are not going to have a better crop this year,” said Donna Sturdy of the Nebraska Wheat Board. “Drought has been devastating to most areas of the state, particularly the southwest area.”
Wheat acres in Southeast Nebraska look substantially better, but most of the overall wheat crop comes from much farther west.
“One thing, with crop prices being down, prices will be up,” Sturdy said. “And Nebraska is in the same shape as any other state in the United States. We’re better than Texas” in overall drought damage.
A check with the Midwest Farmers Cooperative in Greenwood put the Friday cash price for wheat at $4.49 a bushel. That’s up from $2.87 on the same date last year.
Wheat Board Chairwoman Pat Nelson of Upland and the Kearney area said many of the wheat producers there were baling unharvested wheat.
“Feed is going to be at a premium,” Nelson said. “And people are thinking, if they bale it, they can at least sell it, probably for feed.”
Rain at any time is welcome, Sturdy said. “It won’t make as big an impact as if we had gotten it two weeks ago. Rain will keep it from deteriorating further.”
The same goes for pasture conditions in Cherry County and other prominent settings for cow-calf herds.
Derek Macumber of the Valentine Livestock Auction said the management there has scheduled a special sale for next Thursday to allow area ranchers to cull their herds and conserve their grazing assets.
“The grass looks like July or August,” said Macumber.
Mike Hayes, a climate impacts specialist at the UNL drought center, said cooler temperatures are in the forecast for the weekend, but rain is likely to remain in short supply over much of the state.
“We’ve flip-flopped again,” Hayes said. “2005 was looking pretty good for the state.”
He said he heard a lot of concern from ranchers at workshop presentations in North Platte and Chadron in the last few days.
“There were quite a few comparisons to 2002,” he said, “which was the worst year in recent years for many of the livestock producers in the western part of the state.”
The movement in moisture conditions is definitely backward, rather than forward, at this point. “Things are not horrible yet,” Hayes said. “It’s just that trend that people are worried about.”
Reach Art Hovey at (402) 523-4949 or ahovey@alltel.net.
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