COFFEY COUNTY, Kansas – Brandon Rich was having an unusually pleasant time feeding his registered Angus herd one recent morning in early March.
The thermometer was already passed 16 C and it was only 10 a.m.
The day before it had peaked over 27 C in this area.
“This is nice,” 20-year-old Rich said, while his cows munched on the newly spread hay. “I don’t mind being out here for this.”
A few kilometres away at the Waverley Co-operative grain elevator, manager Steve McCurry had broken into a sweat as he checked a truck load of feed.
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“This is weird weather. Yesterday it was 82 degrees (28 C.) We’re 30 to 40 degrees (16 to 22 C) above average for this time of year,” said McCurry, mopping his forehead with his plaid sleeve.
While people who do physical work are enjoying the weather, worries nag at the backs of the minds of cattle and crop producers.
This region of eastern Kansas – a rocky, hilly stretch of low quality soil between Wichita and Topeka – is on the edge of the drought that has struck western Kansas, Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle.
In those areas the winter wheat crop is suffering from heat and lack of precipitation, which have combined to provide a perfect environment for numerous wildfires in the countryside.
It’s been so warm that the trees are already budding, at a time of year when the land would normally still be in winter’s thrall.
Conditions aren’t dangerous yet in Coffey County. Moisture has fallen over the winter and rain on the weekend brought more relief, but the area is still far short of what it needs to provide an adequate hay crop and pasture growth this spring.
“We’re not droughty drought, but it’s dry,” McCurry said.
“We need rain. Our cool weather grasses aren’t going to green up without some moisture. The wheat’s starting to green up, but that won’t last without rain.”
Cows kick up dust in Rich’s pasture and in local corn fields moisture can only be found centimetres below the surface. Rocky land and poor soil have made this area one of mostly cattle and few crops, but even cattle are thinly spread because of the low carrying capacity of the land.
In a normal winter this area would get 35 to 40 centimetres of snow.
“This year we got about four inches (10 cm),” Rich said.
“And we haven’t gotten any in the last two and a half months.”
Once spring comes, producers rely on a relatively tight precipitation window for their summer crop. Heavy rain comes in spring and tends to last until about mid-June, when it suddenly stops until the fall.
“Summers here are usually pretty bad,” said Rich, who oversees a herd of 160 cows.
“We get nothing for about three months.”
Right now the local sloughs, which producers call “ponds,” are getting low and rain is needed to recharge them. If the sloughs aren’t full by midsummer, producers here will be hauling in water.
The dryness is worrying producers, but most will be able to handle it because a large proportion have off-farm jobs. Rich’s 60-year old father, for example, works at the nuclear reactor that is five kilometres from their farm.
“Most of the people around here work there,” said Rich, who works full time with the cows.
As long as it ends soon, the dry winter won’t necessarily cause lasting problems. In fact, the warmth has helped Rich save feed and hay because the animals aren’t burning it for heat.
But with no major precipitation in the forecast, producers around here are likely to stay anxious, hoping they don’t face the problems that farmers to the west and south are already facing.
