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Agriculture weathers drought
By J.T. SMITH
Randy Carson, president of Abilene Livestock Auction, missed a lot of sleep in 1998 just from being busy.
Abilene Livestock Auction often sold cattle until midnight with the extremely heavy runs of stock coming to town as the Drought of '98 left many ranchers with extremely limited pastures - or even no water.
Carson said the auction averaged more than 2,000 cattle per weekly sale each Tuesday in Abilene and up to 3,500 on some sale days during the year.
For 1998, Abilene Livestock Auction moved more than 102,000 head of cattle through the sale ring at the huge facility just off of northeast Interstate 20.
What's more - Amarillo Livestock Auction, which was acquired by Abilene Livestock Auction in 1995, sold more than 130,000 head of cattle for 1998.
Abilene Livestock Auction is owned by Carson along with John W. Michener, Jr., of Fort Worth, and his son, Madison Michener of Amarillo.
Madison Michener moved from Abilene to Amarillo to operate the facility there after the Abilene auction acquired it.
In addition, Abilene Livestock Auction also acquired Bowie Livestock Auction in March 1998.
All totaled, from its three auctions in Texas, Abilene Livestock Auction-owned commission barns sold about 280,000 cattle during 1998 - a huge challenge during the Texas drought.
"We would prefer to sell their cattle because they want to bring them to town - not because they have to," Carson said. "But we are here to help the cattlemen in any way we can."
Carson and the rest of the staff at Abilene Livestock Auction wish ranchers to have abundant rain, belly-deep grass and high cattle prices in 1999.
The cattle market is a cyclic phenomenon and is projected to move into a stronger cycle in the spring and summer of 1999.
Abilene Livestock Auction has about 30 employees working full-steam each sale day.
Bumper wheat harvest
Travis Gary of Abilene Ag Service and Supply said more than 940,000 bushels of wheat from the 1998 wheat harvest rolled into Abilene Ag.
Abilene Ag clearly would have received more than a million bushels of wheat in the city had it not been for a lack of timely delivery of enough railcars to handle the bumper harvest.
With continual sunny days, the wheat harvest came in rapidly through the streets of Abilene to Abilene Ag's big grain elevator on South 14th.
Gary noted that extremely timely rains in February and March - before the treacherous Drought of 1998 struck - made for the bumper spring wheat harvest.
"Another thing people don't realize - in addition to uninterrupted harvest days - the dry conditions made for wheat with absolutely no rust disease problems in 1998," Gary noted. "We just didn't have any disease problems."
If there had been stronger wheat prices and enough railcars, it would have been an ideal harvest for the spring of '98.
Global conditions, including how currency problems are resolved in Asian countries, will have a huge impact on both the wheat and cotton market in the Abilene region in 1999.
Gary expects about 100,000 acres of wheat in Taylor County for 1999 forage and/or grain production.
Good rainfall in 1999 will make all the difference in the world in the Abilene area agricultural economy.
"We've got to have it in 1999 because our subsoil moisture was so badly depleted in 1998," Gary said.
Some failed cotton acres from the Drought of '98 were being sown into wheat fields in the late fall of 1998 for 1999 wheat production for either potential forage for cattle grazing or for grain.
Many farmers were anxious to put a crop on the land that had stood idle - in some cases - throughout the summer.
Lindy Patton, executive director of the Texas Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation state headquarters office in Abilene, said the program adapted to the drought in 1998.
"In this region, we provided that farmers whose cotton didn't come up to a stand or was failed-out before July 15 wouldn't owe an assessment even though the Foundation had incurred the cost of mapping and trapping for those fields," Patton said.
As the 1998 drought grew prolonged into the fall, the Foundation board adopted a rebate program where farmers whose cotton failed by September 1, prior to fall diapause treatments in the 22-county Rolling Plains Central (RPC), had a $5 per acre rebate.
Eradication program officials in Abilene are looking to 1999 with enthusiasm.
The 1998 drought clearly reduced revenues for the weevil war.
"But many farms could still see benefits from the united eradication effort - even in a drought year," Patton said.
Cotton is clearly the No. 1 crop of the Abilene region as the Rolling Plains alone normally produces more than a million acres of cotton.
Agriculture in West Texas often goes in boom and bust cycles. Farmers are hoping 1999 produces amber waves of grain across wheat land and a sea of white in Abilene area cotton fields.