COLLEGE STATION – Rangeland in West Texas and the Edwards Plateau continues to suffer from drought conditions, while parts of Central and East Texas have received enough rainfall recently to strengthen planted crops and beef cattle operations, a Texas Agricultural Extension Service agronomist said Tuesday.
"The rainfall has been spotty, it's kind of a situation of where you are," said Travis Miller, an Extension agronomist. "The rains at least in the eastern third of the state have been very helpful. A lot of crops look good ... there's good corn, sorghum and cotton being grown in the South and in Central Texas. West Texas, the Edwards Plateau and a good part of the Southern Rolling Plains are still in pretty dire straits."
Average rainfall is predicted for the summer season, Miller noted, but said the spring months are the normal times of year to receive rainfall.
"April, May and early June are your normal times of the year to receive normal precipitation," he said. "The summer is not a high rainfall period of time, and if we don't go into the summer months with an average amount of rainfall, it gets pretty dry."
Meanwhile, crops around the state that have received rainfall continue to strengthen, while the wheat harvest enters the harvest mode. Miller said the wheat harvest kicked off in the Brady, Texas, area last week and continues to pick up steam in Central Texas this week.
"Overall, what's been harvested so far has been a disappointing yield," Miller said. "There's better wheat up around Waco and north of there. The best wheat in the state is north of Dallas, and it will be next week before that is cut."
While agricultural producers have been praying for rain, the hail that came with recent storms damaged cotton and corn crops in some parts of Texas.
"In the Brazos River Bottom, virtually all of the cotton has been replanted," Miller said. "Replanting was really heavy last week and should be winding down this week. The cotton was essentially gone, all you had was a short, tender plant. Corn losses are expected to be up to 50 percent. Most of the corn stood back up and had some tattered leaves. Later planted corn didn't receive a lot of permanent injury."
Miller said he doesn't expect a change in commodity prices resulting from the hail that damaged corn and cotton crops.
"When traveling north of Highway 21, there's virtually no damage," he said.
"The soybean crop is a mixed bag. Some was a total loss, and some was left in pretty good shape."
Hill and Falls counties had previously experienced hail storms earlier in the spring and have already gone through a replant phase.
"But it took out a bunch of wheat," Miller added.