Texas crops wilt amid drought – Record 251 counties have outdoor burn bans – More drought predicted for next year
By Lara K. Richards
23 August 2011 The sweltering heat and crushing drought have taken North Texas captive, drying up hope for a fall wheat crop. Stan Bevers, management economist and extension professor with Texas AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Vernon, said lack of rainfall coupled with days and days of triple-digit heat have taken its toll on area fields. “One of the things that makes it most difficult in this area is that we will traditionally not lose three crops back to back,” he said. “Now we’re set up to lose three — the wheat crop last year, this year’s cotton crop, and then this fall’s wheat crop. That is just financially devastating.” Bevers said the area’s cotton crop, even crops in irrigated fields, has greatly suffered from the dry conditions. “Cotton loves the heat, but it can only take so much without moisture,” he said. “If you get out in the fields, from what I understand, farmers are finding one to two bolls per plant, so that wouldn’t cover the cost of stripping it or picking it.” Some local alfalfa farmers have even turned off their irrigation systems completely because keeping up with triple-digit heat was futile, he said. “At the temps we’ve had, the moisture just doesn’t stay. You can’t get behind on irrigation, you have to just keep pumping. The problem is that some of the wells are getting low and running out of irrigation water now,” Bevers said. “Some of the alfalfa growers around here just quit watering it. They couldn’t keep up with the 110-, 112-degree heat.” It would take extraordinary rainfall in the next few weeks to create conditions conducive to a fall wheat crop, he said. “Can we get a wheat crop? I hate to say this because I’ve got friends down in Brownsville and Corpus (Christi), but we need a Category 4 or 5 hurricane to hit to give us enough moisture. That’s the amount of water we’d need to even think about a wheat crop,” Bevers said. “The drought has depleted all the soil moisture, probably down 3 feet. There’s nothing there. These popcorn showers we’ve been getting recently make us feel better, but they aren’t enough to change where we are.” Sadly, Bevers said his advice to farmers is to stay put until rainfall comes. “Now’s the time not to do anything, and I hate to say that, because everyone’s got bills to pay,” he said. “It’s like the old saying, ‘When you’re in a hole, stop digging.'” Even though conditions are bleak, farmers are hopeful for a break in the dry pattern, he said. “We’re eternal optimists. We think it’ll start raining tomorrow. Then maybe the next day. Maybe the next day,” he said. “What I’ve told people is to just stay strong.”
North Texas crops wilt amid drought 
COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) — The record number of Texas counties with outdoor burn bans has reached 251 as the heat wave and drought continue.
The Texas Forest Service on Tuesday reported that Jefferson, Willacy and Zapata are the only counties lacking the burn bans.
The previous outdoor burn ban record in Texas, prior to this year’s drought, was set in January 2006 at 221 counties. That record fell in June.
State agriculture officials this month estimated that the drought has caused a record $5.2 billion in livestock and crop losses since last fall.
Records 251 Texas counties have outdoor burn bans 
By ERIC BERGER, HOUSTON CHRONICLE
22 August 2011 As historically bad as this summer’s drought has been, we may not have seen the worst of it. There’s growing concern among some scientists that Texas’ drought could linger through another dry winter and return next summer to more deeply ravage an already water-stressed state. “I’ve started telling anyone who’s interested that it’s likely much of Texas will still be in severe drought this time next summer, with water supply implications even worse than those we are now experiencing,” said John Nielsen-Gammon, the state climatologist and a Texas A&M University professor. In the short term, there’s little relief in store. Houston topped 100 degrees (101) again Monday, beating the record of 32 total days with temperatures reaching the century mark set in 1980 (not consecutive). […] More than 55 percent of Texas, including Harris, Waller, Brazoria and Galveston counties, is presently experiencing its worst one-year drought on record. Houston has had a shade under 11 inches of rain this year, putting it more than 25 inches below normal for the period since Jan. 1. It’s by far the driest start to a year on record in Houston. The drought has begun to stress water supplies, putting the city of Houston and many surrounding communities on mandatory water restrictions. According to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, 796 communities across the state are now limiting water use, including 506 which have issued mandatory restrictions. If the drought persists into next year, the state of Texas won’t have the buffer of nearly full water reserves. […] The greater Houston region, which has been especially hard hit, has seen its total reservoir capacity fall to 64 percent. “That’s the lowest it’s been for the upper coast region since we started collecting data in this way,” Mace said. The water board has kept this kind of data for two decades. Texas has never experienced a drought as acute as the present lack of rain. However, the infamous 1950s drought from 1950 to 1956 lasted much longer and therefore had a deeper effect on water resources. “Compared to the 1950s, this single year is so intense that it might count for two or three years of the 1950s drought,” said Nielsen-Gammon. “In other words, the current drought doesn’t need to last the full seven years that the 1950s drought did for it to be just as severe.”
This summer’s drought may worsen next year
