"My water comes from the sky," said Bill Gray, who is grateful that the level of precipitation at his ranch was normal this past year.
Gray is a rancher in Crowley County in southeastern Colorado. He irrigates a third of his land to produce alfalfa and grass to feed his cattle. What happens with the rest, Gray said, depends completely on rainfall.
In recent months the grass has begun to recover on Gray's property after a drought that brought precipitation in the state to its lowest levels in a century.
Encouraged by this wet period, Gray said he bought 50 new cows in 2004 and is considering buying more.
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| (Photo/BLM Montana) |
Like Gray, most ranchers and farmers are now beginning to restock and to increase their production, according to Terry Fankhauser, executive vice president of the Colorado Cattlemen's Association.
"We're now desperately trying to rebuild those herds," added Jim Miller, director of policy and communications for the Colorado Department of Agriculture.
Department statistics show that livestock represents about 70 percent of the total agricultural production in Colorado, annual sales for which are about $5 billion.
Though figures for 2004 are not yet available, Miller estimated that agricultural production has increased between 10 and 15 percent, based on direct observation.
"We have a very good harvest this year," Miller said. "It wasn't that we had a lot of rains, but they were timely."
But the effects of the drought continue. In January 2004, the state's total count of cattle and calves was 2.4 million, the lowest inventory since 1962, according to Colorado Department of Agriculture figures.
Fankhauser said the state has lost so many cattle that it will take "a number of years to recover."
With the grass weakened and precipitation returning to normal levels, some undesirable plants are growing faster, Gray said. Two of the most pervasive weeds are kochia and Russian thistle.
Timothy Seastedt, a biology professor at the University of Colorado and expert on invasive weeds, explained that nutrient levels in the soil are more abundant and readily available for plants' immediate use after a drought than during a normal year. During dry years they remain in the soil instead of going up to plants, Seastedt said.
Seastedt said weeds are "rapid growers" that compete with grass and other plants for these nutrients.
Microbes in the soil keep working even after a lack of water has killed plants, processing nutrients that are available when rain comes back. Since weeds compete better than grass, they grow faster, the scientist explained.
Recovery has been difficult, given that this has been a record-beating drought. A study by Hydrosphere Resource Consultants concluded "the current drought…has been the most severe on record by several measures. Stream flows in Colorado in 2002 have generally been the lowest in over 100 years and the tree ring data suggest that flows are probably the lowest in 300 to 500 years."
The study, titled, "What the current drought means for the future of water management in Colorado," stated that the economic sector affected most by this natural phenomenon is agriculture.
The document estimated that in 2002 alone, agricultural losses due to drought were between $500 and $600 million.
According to Miller, the lack of water affects crops in two major ways. First, the roots of plants do not develop enough to take necessary nutrients from the soil.
No matter that producers use plenty of fertilizer, if plants don't have enough water, the fertilizer will not reach them, Miller said. In the case of corn, for example, the result is usually plants that are high in nitrites, which are toxic to cattle.
Another impact of drought on crops is that they germinate poorly or don't germinate at all, according to Miller. The result is a decrease in production.
The head of a normal wheat plant is about as long as an index finger, but in a drought year it may grow only to between an inch and an inch and a half, Miller explained.
Similarly with corn, a cob may not fill completely with kernels. It may have seeds in its lower portion but not in its narrower end, said Miller.
The lack of water doesn't reduce only the amount of production, but also the weight of crops. Miller said that in a dry year, a bushel of corn might weigh 50 pounds, whereas in a normal year it would weigh 62 pounds.
In terms of value of production, hay is the most important crop in Colorado, followed by corn and wheat. The state also produces potatoes, vegetables and fruits.
These crops represent about a third of the total agricultural production of the state. The other two-thirds encompass livestock, mainly cattle.
Miller explained that "most of our field crop production exists because those cattle are there."
Livestock have also suffered as a result of the current drought, due to scarcity of grass and food in general.
Gray said the drought pushed cattlemen to choose one of three options: either buying hay and corn to feed their cows at higher costs, taking their cows to other states, or selling part or all of their herd.
He chose the third option. Gray said that more than a year after the beginning of the drought, in the fall of 2001, he sold a few of his 650 mother cows. As the drought continued and got worse, he sold more cattle until he was down to 325 cows.
Miller recalled that in 2002 there were stock sale yards where people were trading cattle 24 hours a day. Due to the high number of animals on offer, however, prices were not the best.
The result is that from 2002 to the present, the number of cattle in Colorado has decreased about 80 percent, according to Fankhauser.
Most of the cows sold in Colorado went to Iowa, Eastern Kansas and Missouri, Miller said.
This movement of cattle creates another problem: acclimation. "We're all raised to find certain foods tasty and other foods don't taste so good to us. It's just like that with cattle," he explained.
In other words, if cows don't like the grass they find in pastures, they eat enough to keep alive but not to grow as well as they could.
Miller added that cows develop features, like hair size and density, which allow them to do better where they are. Some of these genetic strains were developed by ranchers' grandfathers, and therefore represent the work of several generations.
"If you sold off half of your herd, and now you're trying to buy replacement cattle to rebuild your herd, you're buying a genetic strain that isn't acclimated to your particular geographic area," Miller said.
In addition, now that most ranchers are buying cattle, the prices are higher than two years ago when everybody wanted to sell. Gray said he got an average price of $625 per head when he sold part of his herd, while recently he has paid between $1,200 and $1,300 per head for new cows.
As crops have begun to grow green again this year, so has the hope of ranchers like Gray.
But the lack of water may not be over. Miller said that according to some scientists, the region could be at the beginning of a major 20- to 30-year drought. This forecast is based on the analysis of tree rings and other clues that indicate that Colorado has experienced these long- lasting droughts every 400 years.
The data indicate that one of these dry periods occurred around the year 1700, and before that, around 1300.
Four years of drought have been enough to dramatically impact the lives of Colorado ranchers and farmers. Gray said that with fewer cows in his herd, he has changed some of his habits due to the drought. For example, he used to go fishing in the mountains every spring in but no longer does, because his income has been reduced by about half.
What if the drought lasts for two more decades? He prefers to think that won't be the case, and faces the situation with a sense of humor. "I hope this is a 300-year-drought or even a 100-year-drought. I won't have to be around to see the next one," the rancher said.
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