That drought spread up here to Iowa. Crop yields were amazingly better than anyone expected. Hooray to the plant breeders and the work they have done the past 20 years.
The worry here of course is the drought extending to next year. Have had some good rains the last couple of weeks so hopefully the soil will get recharged partially before winter.
Oct. 1, 2010 to Oct. 1, 2011 we had 2-3/4” rainfall for 12 months. If there is a precedent to that it was in 1895. My ancestors had oral history of that one. They settled in this county in 1889.
Beginning in Mid Oct. 2011 we had normal rainfall until spring. Then we had a repeat of extreme hot temps and drought until about 1 month ago. Looks like an early fall and prospects of normal winter moisture. (impossible to predict for sure)
Cattle herds are very very low.
But what I described is in the Rolling Plains and the State of Texas is huge. Many areas are still deeply in the extreme drought category.
Cotton production was not good. Much of it will be shredded and not harvested. Wheat crop last year was about 1/2 normal production. Some producers harvested no none of their wheat. Looked like properly headed, but no grain inside. I think most of that was early 90 degree temperatures shutting down the plant growth. It was worst with early planted wheat.
I give plant breeders credit where it is due, but do not like the legal land mine field associated with seed licensing. We produce Certified and Registered wheat seed. My father has been doing that for many years and my brother and I just took over that part of the operation.
Farming was once a simple business, if you want to call it that. It is no longer. Most of the complexity, in my opinion, is due to lawyers and politicians and contributes little to production.
“Farming is easy if your plow is your pencil and the field is 1,000 miles away” ~Ike