Jan 21, 2006 11:20 pm US/Central
Drought Reaching Deep Into East Texas
by Bud Gillett
(CBS 11 News)
Pat Pilgrim's tractors shouldn't be idle this time of year. They should be prepping his 1,800 acres for a corn crop.
But simply driving over his soil can hasten the loss of moisture.
"We're worried to the point that we don't have any traffic on the field at all," the East Texas farmer and businessman explained.
While digging a post hole the Pilgrim's Pride vice president found how little moisture there is."
"You try to conserve all the moisture that you can and you leave all the cover on the ground so when it does rain the rain catches and it doesn't run off. And sunlight doesn't penetrate to bare ground; it's shaded, so you don't lose your moisture."
Pilgrim said the first two inches of the topsoil had no moisture and there was very little in the next 18 inches.
"Past that was zero," he said as the walked through his dry East Texas fields. "It was just hard as a rock."
Pilgrim raises corn to feed chickens in the Pilgrim's Pride food empire.
Mild temperatures have lessened the cost of warming chicken houses, but they're also threatening to balloon his feed expense.
"We'll have to make up the difference out of northern corn coming down on rail," Pilgrim explain.
The company employs a new generation of corn growing that doesn't require him to physically plow the ground. It's called No Till Farming and one of the advantages is it is able to retain whatever moisture is in the soil.
But technology can take you only so far.
A poor hay crop makes it even tougher for cattlemen. Many have culled herds because of the expense.
Matt Davis' own custom hay crop was a drought casualty, too.
Now, he struggles to hold on to his nearly 200 dairy cows.
He's spent $60,000 on hay from out-of-state.
Davis said it's a different quality and Holstein cows are creatures of habit — they don't adjust well if you mess with their diet.
"We've sold cows we generally wouldn't sell because of low production. We've sold cows we generally wouldn't sell because they didn't reproduce like they should."
Davis has three wells to keep his herd adequately watered. But the pond they use to cool off in the summer has dried up, and he dreads a repeat of 2005.
"I would say this year alone income is down $250,000 versus 2004. "
Still, farmers everywhere tend to be an optimistic lot.
"We knew what we were getting into when we got into this business, so I guess we'll just have to ride the highs and lows out," Pilgrim said.
(CBS 11 News)
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