News

Texas farmers assess flood damage

Farmers in north, central and southeast Texas are assessing varying degrees of damage from heavy rain a week ago.  Extension Agent Corrie Bowen in Wharton County southwest of Houston says neither the San Bernard River nor the Colorado River could handle all of the rain that fell.

“Nine, twelve, fifteen inches; that all came south through our county,” Bowen told Brownfield Ag News Monday.  “[It] flooded rice fields, corn, some sorghum and cotton, submerging those fields.”

There are cattle losses, although Bowen tells Brownfield he doesn’t yet know how many.  Some land in the county is flat, so flood water has been slow to run off.

“Two farmers that I’ve talked have 500 and 600-acre fields of corn completely submerged, and not just for a couple of hours, for four and five days,” said Bowen.  “There’s not a lot of hope for that crop of corn.”

It’s possible that drowned cotton can be replanted, said Bowen, but at this late date, he doubts that’s the case with ruined corn.

On the other hand, more northerly and westerly parts of Texas received rain they’ve been hoping to get.  Texas A&M agriculture economist Jason Johnson says the extent of the complaints he’s had at his Stephenville headquarters is that some producers have to fix fence.

“But even with that,” Johnson told Brownfield Ag News Monday, “they say ‘I can always repair fence, but I can’t put water into a stock tank if it doesn’t exist,’”

AUDIO: Corrie Bowen (11 min. MP3)

AUDIO: Jason Johnson (2 min. MP3)