For the second year in a row, cold wet weather is hampering the Lower Rio Grande Valley’s (LRGV) billion dollar agricultural industry. Only this year, the prolonged conditions are posing a much more serious threat, reports AgriLife Today.
Cotton and sugarcane, two of the area’s most lucrative crops, are currently among those most threatened, according Brad Cowan, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension (AgriLife) agent in Hidalgo County.
Without the ability to plant their 2015 crop soon, cotton growers face two major challenges of harvesting before the state-mandated Sept. 1 deadline and meeting planting deadlines for adequate crop insurance. Plus, late planting intensifies worry of a late harvest, when the boll weevil can invade the crop.
Sugarcane is under threat of losing significant yields. Harvest is shut down because fields are too wet for mechanized harvesters to take the ratoon crop to the state’s only sugar mill. Additionally, other growers have been trying to get sugarcane planted since September.