Released June 17, 2009

COLLEGE STATION, Texas - Most of the 750,000 acres of dryland cotton in the Texas High Plains looks "very rough," said a Texas AgriLife Extension Service agronomist.

But irrigated cotton, though late in many areas, has dodged the bullets of hail and high winds and looks "decent," said Randy Boman, AgriLife Extension cotton agronomist, Lubbock.

There have been rains in his area, which encompasses an estimated 3.4 million acres of cotton, about 45 percent of which is dryland, Boman said. But most of his area has yet to see any substantial rains. On June 16, Boman toured fields from Lubbock south to Brownfield, then north to Levelland and Littlefield.

"I could tell there had been some rain in some areas, but still the majority of the dryland looks to me to be in pretty bad shape," he said. "I did find a few irrigated fields that had been beat up by weather events, perhaps high wind and some hail, but nothing that I saw was completely destroyed."

Boman said there were about 750,000 acres of dryland cotton that won't emerge and will probably be soon released by crop insurance companies.

Other dryland fields did receive rain, but without more in the next week or two they will be lost too, Boman said.

"As near as I can tell, perhaps another half a million acres or so of dryland received some rainfall," he said. "That rainfall could have been enough to maybe cause the seed to germinate, but to essentially 'sprout and die.'"

Farther north into the Texas Panhandle, Brent Bean, AgriLife Extension agronomist, said the picture for cotton was better, but mainly because most cotton north of Amarillo is irrigated.

"Cotton is in really good shape, though the dryland is kind of lacking and needs more rain," Bean said. "It's been fairly cool, but it's coming along."

Panhandle corn was also doing reasonably well, Bean said.

"The corn is certainly off to a very good start," he said. "In the Panhandle, 99 percent or more is irrigated."

In Rolling Plains, the wheat "stunk," said Todd Baughman, AgriLife Extension agronomist in Vernon.

The triple whammies of drought and two late freezes resulted in extremely low yields and quality, he said. The high yields were about 15 bushels per acre; most yields were 10 bushels or less.

Cotton or sorghum in his region is late, having been hampered by wet, cool weather, he said. But peanuts, for which Baughman has statewide responsibility, are doing very well.

In South Texas, extreme drought continued to devastate any crops not under irrigation, according to reports from AgriLife Extension personnel.

More information on drought in Texas can be found at the Web site of the Drought Joint Information Center at http://agrilife.tamu.edu/drought/.

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http://agnews.tamu.edu/showstory.php?id=1260

Editor: Robert Burns, 903-834-6191, rd-burns@tamu.edu