Drought conditions have hampered wheat crop, pastures

The wheat on Steve Kraich's Texas County farm would usually be starting to show their first hollow stems and joints by now. But this is no normal year in the Oklahoma Panhandle. <br><br>``There's

Wednesday, March 3rd 2004, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

The wheat on Steve Kraich's Texas County farm would usually be starting to show their first hollow stems and joints by now. But this is no normal year in the Oklahoma Panhandle.

``There's right now not any of it growing,'' said Kraich, whose 320 acres in western Texas County are suffering from a lack of rain like farms all across Oklahoma.

Oklahoma has received just 72 percent of its normal rainfall in the current growing season, from Sept. 1 through Feb. 23, with the Panhandle and western Oklahoma the driest, state and federal statistics show.

Precipitation has increased in 2004, up to 124 percent of normal statewide, but the Panhandle remains bone dry, getting only 57 percent of its usual rain in January and February.

``It's getting to the critical point,'' said Kraich, who's also the agriculture agent for the Texas and Cimarron county extension offices.

``If we start getting some of our usually high winds here during the spring months, we could notice instances of blowing fields, wind erosion in the fields,'' he said.

The drought has stunted development of winter wheat and marred growth on pastures and native range land across the western half of Oklahoma, officials said.

As a result, ranchers' haven't been able to rely on wheat pastures for cattle grazing, and wheat farmers won't have as bountiful a crop to harvest this spring, officials said.

``They've had to spend more money on hay and feed, or using their hay stocks and reserves more,'' said Gary Strickland, agricultural extension agent for Jackson and Harmon counties in the southwest corner. ``It cuts into profits.''

Wheat across the state was mostly fair to poor in the National Agricultural Statistics Service survey released Monday.

Just 7 percent was excellent and 39 percent good, while 31 percent was fair, 14 percent was poor and 9 percent was very poor, the survey said. This time last year, 68 percent was excellent or good, and just 5 percent was poor or very poor.

The late start will likely delay the May wheat harvest until June, and will limit the number of grain heads on each plant, officials said. Robust wheat typically has anywhere from three to five grain heads per plant.

``With some of our very young wheat, the best we can estimate in terms of yield potential will be no more than two heads per plant,'' Strickland said. ``That's considerably less and cuts into their yield.''

If spring turns out to be as dry or drier than winter, the late start could be devastating, with the damaged wheat potentially not forming any harvestable grain in the kernels, officials said.

But at the same time, sufficient moisture from either rain or early spring snow could turn this year's wheat crop into a fairly typical one for Oklahoma, they said.

Hard rain fell Wednesday across the state, and on top of recent rains in southwest Oklahoma, the wheat began to turn green and grow.

``It was just sitting up there smoldering,'' said Michael Jeffcoat, extension agent in Cotton and Jefferson counties. ``But it's a fairly resilient product anyway. You can never write that thing off. It has a way of coming back when you think the weather has beaten it up.''