By Emmy Powell
Communications Specialist
Many farmers and ranchers across the state are experiencing dry conditions.
Although temperatures have dropped, many are still in need of rain. Robert Fleming, a farmer and rancher in Bell County, is one of them.
“Our average rainfall in Bell County is about 32 to 34 inches. As of today, we’re sitting about 12 to 14 inches,” Fleming said in an interview with the Texas Farm Bureau Radio Network. “We’re way below 50% of normal rainfall. Temperatures have helped, and we caught anywhere from four tenths to a little over an inch of rain here this last rain we had two nights ago.”
The rain that fell Monday, Oct. 24, was enough to settle the dust in the pens.
Fleming noted they have been too dry to plant winter wheat.
“We’re way too dry, and I just didn’t want to take a chance on it. There’s still plenty of time. We usually plant a few hundred acres of winter wheat every year, but we haven’t got started,” he said. “It’s a head scratching kind of year, with this drought, inflation, high interest rate, high equipment prices and high land prices.”
The pasture conditions in Bell County are poor.
“The pastures here are beat up. It looks like you could play golf on them,” Fleming said. “It’s pretty much burned up from the high temperatures. We had over 60 days with the high of 100 degrees. It really fried our pastures. They look poor. Water conditions are even worse. I think a lot of people will run out of water before they run out of hay.”
Fleming is cleaning up some stock tanks and expanding others during the drought.
Rain began falling on Friday, Oct. 28. Central Texas ranchers like Fleming are hopeful this rain will be more substantial, enough to provide runoff and help fill up some stock tanks.