Dry in Western Plains

[smokeyjay]

A reliable source reports 65 square miles of rangeland burned yesterday during the high temperatures and high winds in Stanton county, Kansas

[idalivered]

From our perspective of northern iowa, it's always dry in texas, OK, eastern colorado and kansas. I have no idea about cropping in the central/southern plains, so if the winter wheat is not good enought to leave for harvesting, what are your options? I suppose if irrigation is available, soybeans would work? What is the latest you can plant milo?

[rightone]

much of the irrigated stuff.  ( better on heavier soils vs the real sandy stuff )

One thing though, is it takes a while for em to learn to shut the water off on beans.

On irrigated corn they're used to running alot of water.  On irrigated wheat that gets plenty of water too at times.

On beans, water it, plant em, get em up, then basically shut the water off till flowering ( pretty tough to learn for folks that are used to running alot of h20 ).

Nother problem with beans in the W is there's no place to go with beans at harvest.

Gotta be hauled out to somewhere that the elevators know what a soybean is.

[rightone]

Federal govt owns most of the land west of the Continental Divide.

They're "saving it to death." 

A lot of overgrowth and slash growth areas ( 10's of 1,000s of square miles ) that wick every drop of evap water out of the whole system.

Weather in the USA is formed and moves West to East.

Everything from a moisture stand is now wicked out of the whole system before moisture can get up and over the top of the Divide, form weather and rain out on east of the Divide.

Slash growth tree counts in the 50,000 to 250,000 plants per acre pop counts.

( bout 2" diameter stuff, say 20 ft tall, basically all just leans together...even the elk do not attempt to walk thru it  )

Also a pile of it needs "hunt and pluck" logged to thin trees down to 20 to 50 trees per acre which the land can support ( plenty of tree pops in the 3,000 to 10,000 trees per acre now ).

Everything needs grazed with sheep and goats and comped with cattle.

AND a bunch of this needs burned too. 

USA govt needs to lotto off about 5,000,000 acres of land per year for 100 years to get that land out in private hands.

Folks will manage the land better, and create some REAL economy with it.

Keep in mind the usa govt will still have 500,000,000 acres left in 100 years after they lottoed off 500,000,000 acres ( yep they own right at 1 Billion acres now...about 1/3 of the whole usa ).

Appears to be long term, almost planned desertification in progress.

This could end up long term drying out almost the whole usa too.

Should take 3 to 5 more years to really effect the Midwest and Eastern weather ( stagnant highs from the W park farther E and move the old Gulf rainfall patterns such that they rain out in the Atlantic ).

Guess we'll see.

.

[smokeyjay]

In my area, we get about 32 inches of rain per year.  Sometimes, it's in bunches of 6-8 inches at a time, so it's not very evenly spaced through the growing season.  Further west, the rainfall is around 18-26 inches, west to east.

Irrigated beans do well.  We plant milo for its drought hardiness and ability to wait for rain.  We can get 60-100 bu/ac. when corn and beans would be a disaster.  We can plant as late as July 4-6, depending on the year.  Sometimes the fall comes early.  We try to plant no later than the end of June.  Normal plant dates are super early (April 20-30) or June 1-20.

[Wind]

My nephew who farms in western KS [Gove County] near the Smoky Hill river, told me a few weeks ago that there just may not be a wheat harvest is his area.  They "dusted" in their wheat last fall, some of it anyway.  They pulled the drill out because of  the dry conditions not knowing what was best.  They have had very little rain or snow all Winter.  I'm not sure if the will try to pant milo on there unplanted wheat ground or what?  They will need some rain for the milo too.  The precipitation in KS can sure change a lot from West to East.  Smokeyjay, you must be about a 90 miles east of Gove County to get 32" a year.  Here in central IA we are not wet by any means with many of the weather systems going south and north all Winter. I was wondering about Nebraska's moisture?  I didn't see much on the radar in that state this Winter.

Best wishes everyone

Wind

[nwobcw]

   Right that is interesting about the western fed lands soaking up the moisture.  Here in NW Ohio we used to get most of rain out of the southwest.  Lately it seems our rain storms form over Lake Michigan and give us just enough to get by, with the once in a while 2 to 3 incher usually in early June.  20 miles here can make a huge difference in rainfall.  I was talking with a guy east of me at an auction yesterday who said they got barely any rain in July-August last year whereas I had the best year ever.  He's on sand and I'm on heavy clay.

[smokeyjay]

Wind, yes, that's about my location.  The Smokey Hill river passes by about 35 miles north of my location as it moves eastward.  I suspect your nephew will try to plant milo if any rain does fall.  It's a hardy crop that can recover from a harsh environment, better than corn or beans.