A Poor Corn Crop in Christian County

Effects of the drought 

A Christian County (KY) cornfield at Memorial Day

The corn crop in Christian County, KY, looked promising at the end of May when I took this photo. Farmers had planted earlier than usual due to the mild winter, and many fields were already well beyond "knee-high." Newspaper reports predicted a record-breaking year in corn production in Kentucky.

The price of corn has been kept high in recent years by the production of corn ethanol. Also, China and other densely populated countries buy corn to help feed the masses, thus driving up corn prices further.   Apparently excited by high corn prices. one of our neighbors harvested his wheat this spring before it looked ready and quickly planted corn in the stubble, (Then he accidentally burned the little corn plants with fertilizer -- which was probably both frustrating and embarrassing.)

We had a dryer-than-usual winter and spring in 2012, but if we had received a few generous rains in June, we could still have had a good corn crop. Even our neighbor's fertilizer-burned corn was looking pretty good. But we had an exceptionally hot June (day after day of 100° or more) with just a few sprinkles of rain. By the beginning of July, when the corn in Christian County should have been growing big, full ears, many fields were already dying from the drought.

USDA image for week of July 28, 2012

Now Christian County is officially in Level 2 (severe) drought. Our neighbor, who planted corn in his wheat stubble last spring, went out to his field one day in July and chopped it for silage. He's facing a hay shortage for his livestock and he probably didn't have crop insurance. I've noticed several other cornfields that have been chopped or baled. Cattle feed of any sort will probably fetch a high price this fall and winter. The grass, like the corn, has had a very bad year.

When we have a corn crop failure in Christian County, it takes millions of bushels of corn out of the market. We grew almost 11 million bushels of corn in 2011, but the crop this year will be much less than that. And the drought extends across most of the U.S. -- in fact, many areas are dryer than Christian County. The entire harvest of food in the United States this year is going to be a lot smaller.

A very dry pasture in the Missouri Ozarks, July 2012

I've read several articles about how the drought will affect grocery prices. There doesn't seem to be much agreement, so I'll stick with government figures. The USDA is projecting a 3 to 4% increase in most food prices (and something more than that in meat prices) as a direct effect of the drought this summer.

Some agricultural experts are urging the U.S. to lower its requirements (quotas) for ethanol production so that more corn will be available for food worldwide. Russia is also experiencing a drought.

The federal government is offering some emergency assistance to Kentucky farmers in drought stricken areas. Low interest emergency loans are available. Conservation Reserve Program lands may be used for hay or pasture with some restrictions and conditions. Crop insurance providers have been asked to voluntarily offer farmers an extra month before charging interest on the unpaid portion of crop insurance premiums.

The Climate Prediction Center sees little rain in the near future for Kentucky. The drought is expected to continue through October.

Fires along the Niobrara River

Fires in Brown and Keya Paha Counties in northern Nebraska

North central Nebraska is fighting three big fires in Brown and Keya Paha counties, along or near the Niobrara River. As I understand it, all of these fires were started by lightning from thunderstorms. Vegetation  is very dry due to drought, and high winds have been spreading the fires. Today, the temperatures climbed as high as 108° in the area.

The above map from the Nebraska Emergency Management Area shows the locations of the three fires. The largest of these, on the west, is the Fairfield Canyon Fire that has burned about 50,000 acres. The two smaller fires on the east are the Wentworth Fire and the Hall Fire. These fires are 50 to 60 miles north/northwest of where I grew up in northern Nebraska.

The news section of the Radio KBRB website reports that various agencies and organizations are providing support and assistance. The Central Plains Chapter of the American Red Cross, the Southern Baptist Emergency Relief Team, the National Guard, the Rocky Mountain Incident Management team, the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency, firefighting crews from over 50 Nebraska and South Dakota communities, and other civic and religious organizations are all working in the area.  One of the roles of the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency is to coordinate these efforts to the best advantage.

The National Guard has sent water tankers and also some helicopters that can carry big buckets of water. The helicopter crews can dump the water onto the fire, or they can lower the buckets to the ground where the water can be used by firefighters. These aerial photos from the Omaha World show how the helicopters lower the buckets into the river to fill them with water.

I am not sure this link will work for everyone, but I am going to include it anyway. This is Lorie Olson's Facebook album of about 250 fire photos from the Fairfield Canyon fire. If you click on one of the little photos, it will enlarge, and then you can click on that photo to go to the next one.

My heart is touched by the Facebook messages of my Nebraska friends who live in the area. They describe how they are playing a part in a huge community effort to fight these fires. They are baking cookies and cinnamon rolls, donating bottled water and ice, lending their cots and air mattresses, and working in emergency shelters and kitchens.

This evening, I received an email from Carolyn Hall whose family owns the Hall Ranch where one of the fires is raging (the fire on the east edge of the map.). Here is her assessment of the situation: "They have backfired along the west, north and east sides of the canyon so if the wind stays in the south today it may burn itself out.  The big question is what happens tomorrow when the wind goes to the northwest??????? More troubling is the Wentworth fire which is out of the canyon and heading northeast.  That will really be a problem when the wind goes to the NW."

These fires are devastating people's lives in so many ways. It's not just grass that's burning -- it's people's livelihoods and futures. Please pray for rain for northern Nebraska and all of the drought-parched Midwest -- rain without lightning.

UPDATE: The fires were finally declared contained on July 28. Destroyed by fire: 75,000 acres, 14 homes, 42 other structures, hundreds of miles of fences, and an unestimated number of livestock and wildlife.

Ready for a Rainy Day

Corn harvest begins   

I took this photograph about a month ago. I had stopped, late in the afternoon, at a roadside vegetable stand that is operated by an old-order Mennonite family. Mama was minding the stand, while the men and boys were bringing in the hay from the fields. I felt it would be rude to photograph the lady and her little produce stand, but I did drive down the road a little way and take this picture through my car window.

I thought about the things that Mennonite family was doing that hot afternoon. The little, box-like, vegetable stand must have felt like an oven as the late afternoon sunshine poured under the awning. And the men in the field must have been sweltering, as they pitchforked the hay into the wagon. The horse was probably very hot, too.

Some very nice-looking cantaloupes and watermelons were sitting in full sun, in a wagon next to the produce stand. I figured they had been baking there all day, so I chose a cantaloupe that didn't look as ripe as most. Later that evening, I cut into it and found that it was not ripe at all. I had to throw it away! With the Mennonites and me both trying to compensate, that melon didn't get enough hot sunshine.

The thing that I notice now about this photograph is that the stubble in the field is quite green. Christian County (KY) was getting a little dry even in mid-July, but after another month of extremely hot temperatures and precious little rain, it is now very dry. Lawns, mowed fields, and grazed pastures have developed a sickly brown complexion. The trees are dropping their leaves prematurely. Today, I noticed that a neighbor's field of soybeans is wilting.

I heard on the radio that the extreme heat and the lack of rain is affecting the produce farmers too. Tomatoes are not developing the bright-red color that customers want, grapes are not as colorful as they should be, and melons are small and sunburned. That news didn't surprise me much, because I know how my garden is struggling, even with fairly regular waterings.

Tomorrow, we have a 60% chance of rain. Some of the farmers were combining corn today, trying to get it harvested before it gets wet. They want its moisture content to be as low as possible. Tonight, people were still working in one of the cornfields as I drove home at 11:00 p.m. A big combine was moving down the rows and a couple of big grain trucks were waiting to be loaded. I hope they didn't have too much more to do.

For me and everyone else who is not harvesting corn, a rainy day tomorrow would be a blessing! My garden would appreciate a real rain. The suffering soybeans and trees and our poor, brown lawns and pastures would love a good, slow soaker too.

Not a Pretty Picture

Drought-damaged corn

Here's a cornfield that I pass nearly every day. The leaves of the corn plants are rolled up tight to try to conserve moisture. We had a little shower today, and we're thankful for it, but I don't think it will do much for these plants.

The Trees Await Their Leaves

Drought still taking a toll

I hope all these trees will be getting their leaves soon. When it was terribly dry last summer, many trees lost their leaves and looked dead -- not just in this grove, but across Christian County and even in town. It was impossible to guess if they had been forced into a desperate form of dormancy or if they were dead. We'll find out this spring which ones survived and which ones didn't.

In my yard, I am wondering how many shrubs were mortally wounded. One of the forsythia bushes by the road has been blooming beautifully. Another forsythia nearby appears to be partly dead. It's only blooming on the lower third of its branches. I'm waiting to see if it gets any leaves on the upper branches before doing any pruning.

The full effects of last year's drought are still being revealed. Meanwhile, we've been getting quite a bit of rain. I don't really enjoy the wet days and the mud, but I'm glad that the water table is being restored to a normal level.

Kentucky Hopes for a Rainy Winter

Recent rains have greened the autumn landscape

After a very dry summer, rain surprises us. Even though rainy weather is normal for November, my reaction this year is, "Look! It's raining! I'd better take a picture!"

The National Weather Service announced a couple of weeks ago that the drought has ended in the Pennyrile, our region of Kentucky. However, we remain 12 to 16 inches short of rain for the year. We need a rainy winter.

According to the NWS and the National Drought Monitor, only the southern border of Christian and Todd counties, across the Oak Grove and Trenton areas, are still under drought conditions. The drought in those areas has been downgraded to abnormally dry, the least severe categorization.

Source: "Officials declare end of drought" by Blair Dedrick, Kentucky New Era, Nov. 2, 2007

Recent rains have insured good seed germination for the winter wheat. The fresh green color of the newly sprouted wheat is good to see. The grass in some of the pastures is looking better also.

Hay for the winter remains a problem for livestock owners. The late freeze followed by drought reduced the hay harvest by half in many areas. In an effort to help, Kentucky's Department of Agriculture has a hay hotline (1-888-567-9589) where buyers and sellers can list their contact info. Weight and size restrictions have been eased for trucks hauling loads of hay.

Some farmers have baled their drought-damaged soybeans. Others have left the beans standing in the field, saying that the expense of baling is greater than the value of the fodder.

Farmers who are feeding crop residues (corn stalks, etc.) are cautioned to have them tested for nutritional value and nitrate content. High nitrates can kill livestock.

In our neighborhood, it was a good summer for the bulldozer operators. While water levels were low, many farmers took the opportunity to clean out their ponds and dig them a little deeper. New ponds have been constructed as well. Now we need a rainy winter to fill them.

Technorati tags: drought in Kentucky, hay shortage

A Rainy Day in Western Kentucky

Drops of water are falling from the sky.

We've had a couple of rainy days, and we're supposed to have a good chance of rain again on Wednesday night and Thursday. Over the last 48 hours or so, we've had over 4 inches.

The cats have not been nearly as enthusiastic as usual about going outside to play. Skittles slept all day on a window sill, contented enough, but Casper couldn't settle anywhere. Every time he went out to test the weather, he was standing at the storm door a few minutes later, wanting to come inside again.

Dennis spent his rainy day driving around with a young Mennonite couple who are visiting from Pennsylvania. While he was gone, I took all the books out of the biggest bookcase in the house and moved it. I've been wanting to get that done for quite a while.

It was a bit surreal to hear the rain falling outside while listening to the reports of the terrible California fires. As dry as we have been, I would send this rain to Southern California in a heartbeat, if only I could.

Drought Continues in Kentucky

Hoping for a wet winter

Christian County, Kentucky, like most of the state, is still in desperate need of rain. All of Kentucky is experiencing severe, extreme, or exceptional drought. Our county is in the extreme drought category, about 12 inches below normal in rainfall at present.

A recent headline in the Kentucky New Era summarizes the sad story of the harvest: "Corn yields down 50 percent, tobacco down 30 percent, soybeans devastated."

A cold front is bringing us a shower tonight, and we're thankful for it. I hope it rains all night. Some farmers have sowed their winter wheat, and this little shower should help it germinate.

I imagine the firefighters are as thankful for rain as the farmers are. Our volunteer fire departments have had a hard summer of field and forest fires.

A recent article in the Kentucky New Era described the toll that constant fire-fighting has taken on the equipment of the volunteer fire departments. Most of them use older equipment that requires ongoing repair, even in the best of times.

Our burn ban in Christian County had been lifted after we received a little rain, but now has been re-imposed. In fact, there's a burn ban across the entire state.

The Kentucky Department of Agriculture has set up a website and hotline for farmers who are buying or selling hay. I've met several big loads of hay on our little highway recently, apparently going to a farm in our area.

There is a bit of good news about the weather. We're supposed to have a "La Niña winter," and in Kentucky, that typically means a wet, mild winter.

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Hay Shortage in Christian County, KY

Cornstalks baled for winter feed

Rain was a welcome sight!

One day last week, rain came down in torrents in Hopkinsville. Low spots in the streets were flash-flooded, and the electricity all over town went out for a while because of a TVA substation problem. Hopkinsville and Crofton got about two inches of rain from this little cloudburst.

When I went home, it was disappointing to learn we'd only received a sprinkle. To the west, east, and south of Hopkinsville, much less rain fell, and in many cases, there was no rain at all.

Though it's too late for most of the crops, rain would still help the grass in the pastures and relieve the fire danger of crisp-dried fields.

Coming home from town the other day, I passed by a parched and barren pasture with a herd of cows in it. A little creek (dried up, no doubt) runs through the pasture. I saw a cow balancing on the very edge of the gully and stretching as far as she could, so she could eat leaves off a little tree that grows in the stream bed. It was a pitiful sight -- she wouldn't be doing that if she had anything else to eat.

Farmers are baling their cornstalks and soybeans for winter feed. We really only got one half-decent cutting of hay this year. Usually, we would get three cuttings. The first grass was set back by the late freeze, and then the weather turned so dry. Prices for a big round bale of hay are around $70, compared to $20 a year ago. [UPDATE: An ad in the Kentucky New Era on September 5, 2007, offered "horse-quality" hay in big square bales, 3x3x8 feet, for $85 each.]

On the radio a few days ago, they announced that the Montgomery County, TN, extension service had located 5000 bales of bermudagrass hay in Oklahoma. (Montgomery County is just over the state line from us.) Planter's Bank will front the money for shipment, and farmers can purchase the hay when it arrives.

The lack of pasture grass and the shortage of hay has forced many farmers to sell calves early and to reduce or sell out their cattle herds. It's a very bad year for agriculture in this area. Even though we're not totally agriculture-dependent in Christian County, we'll feel the effects of the drought on our local economy.

A trailer of baled cornstalks

Technorati tags: hay shortage

Fire Weather Warning

Drought, heat, and wind create risk of wild fires

Cattle waiting out the midday heat under the trees

Here's a "Red Flag Warning" weather statement for our area today from the National Weather Service:

Statement as of 2:48 AM CDT on August 22, 2007

... Red flag warning in effect from 1 PM this afternoon to 7 PM CDT this evening...

The National Weather Service in Paducah has issued a red flag warning... which is in effect from 1 PM this afternoon to 7 PM CDT this evening for extreme southern Illinois and most of western Kentucky.

Extremely dry fuels... gusty winds and low relative humidities will make for a potentially volatile fire situation this afternoon. Any Sparks from vehicles such as farm combines or trains... could ignite grassland fires due to the very dry conditions. Gusty winds today could allow these fires to spread easily.

A red flag warning means that critical fire weather conditions are either occurring now... or will shortly. A combination of strong or gusty winds... low relative humidity... and warm temperatures will create explosive fire growth potential.

Source: National Weather Service Watches, Warnings, and Advisories

Related post:
Drought in Western Kentucky

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Drought in Western Kentucky

Rain is desperately needed.

I haven't been taking many photos of Kentucky's beautiful scenery this summer. We are so dry here that the whole landscape has taken on a dead brown color. It is horrible to see, and I just don't feel like photographing it.

The pasture in the photo above is in a river valley. Ordinarily, it would be green with grass, even in August which is always a hot, dry month. The trees in the background grow on the river banks. They aren't losing their leaves too badly yet, but on upland sites, the trees are really suffering. Some have lost many of their leaves and others are turning brown.

We've been under a no-burn order for several weeks. They've had so many fires at Pennyrile State Forest that they've even prohibited campstoves. If we have any tobacco barn fires this year, they could burn up the surrounding countryside as well as the barn.

An article in today's newspaper ("Fires sprout in parched fields," Kentucky New Era, August 21, 2007) described several fires that happened yesterday. One was in a cornfield, and they don't know how it started. Another fire that burned part of a soybean field and some grass may have started from a cigarette butt tossed from a car window. Both those fires were in the Pembroke Volunteer Fire Department's area. A couple of other grass fires happened in Hopkinsville; one of them may have started from a cigarette butt.

The Hopkinsville Fire Department chief was interviewed for the article. He begged people to be careful with their cigarettes, and suggested that farmers have a plow or disk ready to create a firebreak when they enter a field to harvest it. The vegetation is so dry and temperatures are so hot that a spark or just the hot exhaust from a machine could easily ignite a field.

We're also under voluntary water conservation. So far, it's just a limitation on landscape watering. We're supposed to cut back and only water on certain days. Well, we haven't been watering much anyhow -- just the flower bed by the house and the one poor old maple tree nearby that I hope will live a few more years. My garden has been dried to a crisp for a long time, now.

I am thankful that we had county water put in last summer, because wells have been going dry. Supposedly, the well on this place doesn't go dry, according to various local people, but I'm glad we don't have to worry about that possibility.

The newspaper has had several articles about the local water supply. We'd be having much stricter water conservation mandates, but a pipeline that will bring in water from Lake Barkeley (the Cumberland River) is very near completion. It will be put into service before local water supplies are exhausted -- or at least, we're counting on that.

Christian County is on the borderline between "severe" and "extreme" on the drought map. Beyond extreme drought, there is "exceptional drought" like they are having south of us.

The wild deer are having an outbreak of a hemorrhagic fever. The drought and hot weather has dried up many of the smaller watering places; thus many animals are drinking out of the remaining water holes and this facilitates the spread of the disease by tiny flies.

The problem with dried-up streams and ponds isn't limited to wildlife. Many farmers are hauling water to their cattle. With a very limited hay crop, dried-up pastures, crops that withered in the field, and water worries, it's a very bleak year for farmers.

This week, we've had wind along with high temperatures, giving a blast-oven effect that parches every suffering plant even more. We have a small chance of rain this coming weekend. It's much too late for the crops, but any amount of precipitation would help our farm animals, wildlife, pastures, and trees.

Technorati tags: drought in western Kentucky, dry weather, Christian County Kentucky, drought related fires, field fires, water supplies, water shortages

Too Dry in Kentucky

Life in Christian County, Kentucky...

Dried-up grass and corn near Fairview, KY

We sure could use a good, slow, all-day rain. If you look through the parched grass in the photo above, you can see how the bottom leaves of the corn have dried up and turned brown.

This corn is growing in a field with a slight slope. Most years, that would be a good thing because the ground wouldn't be as muddy in the spring when the farmer was trying to get his fields planted. This year, though, a well-drained field isn't an advantage.

The corn looks dry but still fairly good in some of the lowest, flattest fields near creeks. It's taller than this corn, and it's not as dehydrated.

According to a recent AP article about Kentucky's hay crop, it's in bad shape too. The first cutting wasn't as good as usual in many areas because of the late freeze, and now the grass isn't growing because of the drought.

Garry Lacefield, a University of Kentucky extension forage specialist, estimated that statewide hay production was off at least 50 percent this spring. Nearly half of Kentucky's pastureland is in poor or very poor condition, a statewide crop report said this week.

"The forage supply in this state is as low as I've seen it" this time of year, Lacefield said.

Source: "Cattle producers face depleted pastures, little hay amid drought," by Bruce Schreiner, Associated Press writer.

Technorati tags: drought, dry weather, Kentucky, hay crop, corn crop

Rain Showers in Christian County, KY

Life in Christian County, Kentucky...

We had some showers across Christian County yesterday evening and today. The rain was "spotty," which means some areas got a little rain and other areas didn't get much. I've heard about rain amounts from two-tenths of an inch to half an inch.

We had rain here at the house, but I don't know how much. If I see Willis, our Mennonite neighbor, I will ask him. He keeps his own weather records, and I'm sure he'll have a full report not only of how much it rained in our micro-area, but also of how much it rained in various other parts of the county.

That's Hopkinsville's little mall in the background of the photo. You can see how dry the grass is. It probably shouldn't have been mowed so close to the ground. We have some places in our yard where the grass is just as crackly.

The rain has moved out of the area now. I read on the Hopkinsville weather report that the barometric pressure is rising. The weather will be clear until Saturday when we'll have a slight chance of rain again.

Weather Forecasting

Reading about the barometric pressure made me think about my parents. We had a round barometer that hung in the back hallway. Mama and Daddy checked it several times a day to see what the air pressure was doing. When the barometer's needle dropped sharply, it was an omen of an impending weather event. A big drop in air pressure was particularly alarming in the winter, because it usually meant we were going to get a snowstorm.

Both my mom and dad had an ingrained habit of noticing what the wind was doing. At any time, either one could have told you what direction the wind was blowing from. If the wind's direction changed, they knew where it was now, how it had moved there, and what type of weather was likely because of the change.

Like many country people of their time, my parents were pretty good amateur weather forecasters, using their own observations, a few basic weather instruments, and their knowledge of common weather patterns.

Weather predictions weren't as accurate or extensive back then -- that is, during the 1950's and 1960's when I was growing up. The first tornado forecast was issued in 1948. The first computerized weather model was made in 1950. It used 25,000 punched cards. 24-hour forecasts were first issued in the early 1950's. Meterologists first saw photographs of the earth's atmosphere from satellites in the early 1960's. Now we take all of these things for granted.

Technorati tags: weather forecasting, barometers, drought in Kentucky, dry weather

Dry Conditions in Kentucky

Life in Christian County, Kentucky... Life in The Upper South... And What I Think About It...

I wish this was a recent photo of rain on my windshield, but it's not. This photo was taken on May 3 as we were driving through some rain squalls in the northern part of the county. We didn't get any rain at home that day, and we haven't had a good rain since. It is getting dry in Kentucky.

May is typically one of the wetter months of the year here. The May rains help build up soil moisture to carry us through the hot dry months of July and August. But not this year.

The lawn is looking burnt in places already, and the dust from the gravel road is terrible every time someone drives by our place. Thank goodness we have a tall hedge between us and the road that catches a little of the dust.

I've been watering the garden, and I'm sure the farmers wish they could water their field crops. Irrigation is not common here. It's hard to get an adequate well. A few farmers have ponds that they can irrigate from (until the ponds go dry.)

This morning, I heard a weather report on one of the news networks. The reporter read the forecast for the nation, and when she came to the southeast U.S., she waved her arm across that part of the map and said it would be a "beautiful dry weekend."

Beautiful dry weekend? Doesn't she know that 585,000 acres have burned in Georgia and Florida? The fires have been burning for weeks, bringing misery and anguish to thousands and thousands of people. Even in Kentucky, we've had hazy days of poor air quality from the smoke coming off the fires.

I know she can't put rain into the forecast, but she could choose her words with a little more empathy.

Technorati tags: dry weather, fires, drought, empathy, words

Fire at Valentine, NE

Life in The Nebraska Sandhills...

For those who are interested in the happenings in the Sandhills:

Branch Responsible for Valentine Wildfire
North Platte [NE] Telegraph by Diane Wetzel, July 18, 2006

A tree branch rubbing on a power line was responsible for the destruction or damage of a dozen homes and approximately four square miles of land north of Valentine.

Jim Bunstock, public information specialist with Nebraska Emergency Management Agency, said the arc created by the branch created sparks, which ignited dry grasses below.

Read more: Branch Responsible for Valentine Wildfire

The article mentions that the temperature was 113° and the humidity was 9% on the day of the fire. On the weather forecast for my old hometown, I saw that the weather service is issuing Fire Weather Watches. It is dry up there!

UPDATE

Heartcity.com has posted some photos of the Valentine wildfire.

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Valentine, Nebraska

Drought Across the Plains and Beyond

The Rural Life...

I hate to hear that it's terribly dry in the Nebraska Sandhills, my childhood home. A friend writes to me that the hills are burnt up -- that is, the grass has shriveled and dried to a crispy crunch.

It's extremely dry in southwest Kansas where my brother and sister-in-law live and ranch. The wheat crop in Kansas is severely damaged this year, I've read. There won't be much of a hay crop either.

In Montana where Sarpy Sam ranches, his hay crop is running 1/3 less than normal due to the drought.

Texas and Oklahoma are suffering from a long drought and the drought extends across much of the Great Plains, the Great Basin, and the Southwest, creating fire hazards, creating adverse conditions for both wildlife and domesticated animals, and bringing economic stress to farmers and ranchers.

Even some of the Gulf Coast states like Georgia and Mississippi are dry. Louisiana is in a drought, as hard as that may be to believe.

AgWeb comments that, "Pastures and summer crops remain under varying degrees of drought stress from Texas to the Dakotas, despite last week’s scattered but highly beneficial showers."

A map of drought-stricken areas is provided at the U.S. Drought Monitor.

Let's join in earnest prayer for rain for these drought-stricken areas -- and for a moderation in the rainfall in New England where the floods are!

Kentucky has been fortunate compared to many states. Locally, the water table is low, but we've received enough rain that crops are looking good so far. (Photo of my neighbor's cornfield here.)

O GOD, most Merciful Father, in this our necessity, we beseech Thee to open the windows of heaven, and to send a fruitful rain upon us, to revive the earth, and to refresh the fruits thereof, that we may praise and glorify Thy Name for this Thy mercy; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord. Amen.
Prayer Source: Collects and Prayers of the Lutheran Church

O GOD, in Whom we live and move, and have our being, grant us rain, in due abundance, that, being sufficiently helped with temporal, we may the more confidently seek after eternal gifts. Through Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Prayer Source: National Catholic Rural Life Conference

Google search: A prayer for rain

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Water problems in Kansas

Problems with the Ogallala Aquifer

ULYSSES - The prairie spreads for miles here in stubby, ashen-colored patches. Irrigation pivots spray out in circles, each minute sucking up hundreds of gallons of cold water from beneath the oil fields...

The vast underground pool that fills Ulysses' faucets, called the Ogallala Aquifer, is running low, forcing towns and farmers to spend beyond their means to tap alternative sources.

Quoted from: "As aquifer dries, 'water is like gold'" by Garance Burke. Associated Press, February 6, 2006.

Map of Kansas courtesy of Wikipedia. The blue county is Grant County
where Ulysses is the county seat. The red county is Kingman
County, where my brother and sister-in-law live.

This article is based on Ulysses, Kansas, a few counties west of where my brother and sister-in-law live. I talked to Kathy a few days ago, and she said it was very dry there. They hadn't been threatened by prairie fires in their immediate area, but they had smelled the smoke from fires in Oklahoma.

For the past couple of decades, southwest Kansas has been going through a significant dry spell. The chronic lack of rain makes farmers depend on irrigation -- and irrigation is a big drain on the Ogallala Aquifer. "Massive irrigation in western Kansas is depleting the Ogallala Aquifer from 5 percent to 7 percent every 25 years, according to a new report by the Kansas Geological Survey," writes Scott Rothschild in an article in the February 7, 2006, Lawrence Journal-World.

These articles don't say much about big cities that depend upon the aquifer, but they should be required to practice strict water conservation right along with the farmers.

When I was a child in the Nebraska Sandhills, we learned in school that water was easily accessible in the Sandhills because we had the Ogallala Aquifer beneath us. Our teacher told us that the Sandhills were like a big sponge that held water. Even though the land might appear arid, even desert-like, we could be sure that water was just beneath the surface.

Willa Cather wrote that in the Sandhills, the coyotes knew how to dig down to water. We children could have gone outside and dug down to water ourselves. Artesian wells were common in low areas of the valley where I grew up.

We ranch kids saw everyday evidence of the abundance of water in the windmill-powered wells that supplied water to the cattle. Water was one thing we had plenty of in the Sandhills. Rain might or might not come, but there was always water, and usually plenty of wind to pump it.

I am remembering the days before center-pivot irrigation systems were invented -- the days before corn was planted on many pieces of marginally-farmable land.

The depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer will have a great impact on the farm and ranch folks of the Great Plains. I have great affection and respect for those who still make their living from the prairie land. I fear that desertification will drive more of them off the land, and that the land will continue to pass from the hands of individuals to the hands of corporations.

Two related thoughts occur to me.

1. Is there really any hope of bio-fuels becoming an oil substitute if we're in danger of running out of water in America's bread-basket?
2. Doesn't the prospect of running out of water make it extremely important to develop drought-tolerant crops? I think genetic modification may become a necessity, not a choice.