The daily challenges that dairy farmers face can be overwhelming. Factor in Mother Nature’s wild ways, and there is only so much a farmer can do.
In west Texas, dairy farmer, John Boer worries about the outlook of his corn, despite the fact he doesn’t typically start planting corn until the middle of May.
“Our pivots can supply around 80% of the corn’s water needs,” he says. “The rest needs to come from the sky, and we haven’t had really any moisture since August.”
Boer farms alongside his family in Dalhart, milking 2,500 cows. They also farm nearly the same amount of acres, with 750 acres going to corn silage, 1,200 for triticale and 250 being allocated for milo. The Boers plan to plant the same number of acres for corn silage as last year, but state they will drop the population per acre.
While Boer has grown accustomed to the high winds that west Texas can bring, he says his bigger concern is the fact there virtually has been no rain.
“All the corners of my fields are bone dry,” he says.
Even with elevated cottonseed prices, Boer still considers it his most reasonably priced commodity.
“I’m paying $295/ton for cottonseed and $329 for corn on the spot market,” he shares. “I didn’t do long-term contracts because I surely thought the prices were going to go down.”
Boer states he keeps between 15 to 45 tons of feed on hand, depending on the day of the week.
In Groom, Texas, it hasn’t rained in 144 days and farmer Jesse Wieners is concerned.
“I almost hate to go back to 2011, because that was one of the worst droughts that we ever had, but it’s definitely kind of setting up in the same scenario,” he says. “We had a really good fall crop that we harvested that year, the rain shut off in the fall, and it didn’t rain again. I hate to say it, but we’re kind of in that same situation again. I sure hope things turn around and we start to see some moisture. In 2011, it stopped raining and then we started to get a lot of 100 -degree-plus days, and it just really hurt everything.”
Unfavorable Forecast
Forecasts don’t look promising in the near term. USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey says La Nina continues to be the dominating factor. So, areas of the Southern Pains and West that are desperately searching for rain, may continue to be left high and dry.
“The outlooks do not look good, because we are facing the La-Nina-driven storm track that takes the storms to the north of this region,” says Rippey. “That leaves the area with just a lot of wind and only scattered rain showers or snow showers, not much in the way of precipitation.”
