The bleak picture in the Texas Panhandle is too close of a reminder of the drought of 2011.

Even though the area has received more than it had just one year ago, the soil is still extremely dry.

"Generally our farmers are disappointed because of the extreme drought," said Larry Nelson, CEO Windstar Gins. "We’ve only had about 10 to 12 inches of rain in this area this year for the total, and that’s not enough."

As cotton harvest wraps up in the area, the lack of rain is creating another disappointing crop year. After 2011’s drought-stricken crop, yields aren’t what farmers like Chance McMillan had hoped.

Watch this AgDay segment:

"It cut them at least in a third. This year we had some 1,200 pound cotton that yielded around 1,000 pounds, a good 2,000 pounds less than what it looked like," says McMillan.

"One the farms that have the capability to put 18 to 23 inches of water have exceptional yields, because it was a good hot, dry year, which is good for cotton if you have enough water," explains Nelson.

He says for the most part, however, irrigated acres suffered and dryland has been practically non-existent.

"We might have one or two field of dryland that made less than a half a bale per acre, maybe a fourth," says Nelson. "But most of our dryland was all destroyed and most of them, fortunately, we able to collect some insurance."

It’s been more than just the dry weather. As usual, Mother Nature threw in a couple other curveballs that impacted both yields and quality of this year’s crop.

See Comments