By Jennifer Dorsett
Field Editor
Record low temperatures rocked the Texas Panhandle and South Plains this week, bringing an early taste of winter to area farmers along with the worry of cotton crop damage.
In the Panhandle, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Agronomist Dr. Jourdan Bell said it’s too soon to tell how much, if any, fiber damage occurred.
“It’s really sad, because we’ve been looking at many fields that have very good yield potential. But if we don’t have the quality, then that could negatively impact the return in those situations,” Bell said in an interview with the Texas Farm Bureau Radio Network. “We’re really not going to get a good gauge on the effect on fiber quality until many of these fields are ginned, so we’re probably a couple months out on that.”
Further north in the Panhandle, AgriLife Extension Agent Scott Strawn echoed Bell’s concerns about fiber quality, but added most farmers in Ochiltree County, where Strawn is based, were thankful it wasn’t a killing freeze.
“When we get cooling temperatures like this, this can affect those later bolls, especially as far as fiber quality,” he said. “But if we had a freeze, it’d have been really devastating. Even with this cooler weather, we’re going to have cool nights for quite a while. This will begin to affect the grade on this cotton in a negative way.”
In an interview with Perryton’s KXDJ-FM radio, Strawn noted the area’s sorghum crop will also be impacted by the cold weather.
“We have a lot of late-developing sorghum that needs to go ahead because when we do get a freeze, that’s when it’s over,” he said. “So, this slowdown is not helping because we need all the time we can and grow with before we get that actual killing freeze.”
However, the cold weather wasn’t all bad news for the sorghum crop. Russell French, an agronomist for Pioneer, said despite the cold temperatures, much of the region picked up half an inch to 1.5 inches of much-needed precipitation.
“A slender portion of the Northwest corner of the Panhandle did see temperatures around 31 or 32 degrees, so there could be some light corn or light sorghum that could have been hurt some,” French said. “But the rain is going to be really beneficial to the late grain sorghum here in the Panhandle, and it’s perfect for getting wheat drilled.”
Strawn noted the rain was a big boost to wheat growers in the area.
“There are already wheat planters running, wheat drills going, and we’ll see that continue all the way through October. So this moisture came at a great time for the wheat crop that’s going to be planted,” Strawn said. “This is going to be really good to set it up, get it planted and maybe off to a good start. If you already had wheat in the ground, and it’s already beginning to germinate and come up, this will just be a home run. In fact, the producers that tend to plant earlier, a lot of them are going for fall wheat pasture and so this will help those prospects, and that’ll definitely help the cattlemen, too.”
The weather is expected to warm back up this weekend, with highs reaching the mid-80s by Saturday afternoon.