Friday, February 7, 1997
Rainfall has big value for area wheat farmers
By JERRY DANIEL REED / Senior Staff Writer
A Stamford lottery ticket holder may have been the big winner
in these parts on Wednesday, but winners abound all around the
Big Country.
Farmers, ranchers, hunters and even city homeowners won shares
of what Taylor County Agent Gary Bomar estimated was a $2 million
rainfall in Taylor County alone.
Wheat farmers, whose crops likely would have started shriveling
after a few more weeks of drought, were especially blessed, he
said.
"Oh, man, it's great!" Bomar exclaimed Thursday morning.
He said the scarcity of moisture that followed last fall's
generous rains hadn't lasted long enough to cause wheat lasting
harm - yet. But with the grain crop due to shed its winter dormancy
in about three weeks, the moisture dearth was reaching a crucial
stage, he said.
Cotton growers will also benefit from the good soaking, which
will make their soils lighter and easier to break up as they plow
it for late spring planting, Bomar said.
Cattlemen, too, can rejoice. Soon-to-be greener pastures of
wheat and native grass will feed herds that had been eating into
their owners' pocketbooks for the cost of store-bought supplemental
feed, Bomar said.
Even quail hunters will share the benefits as lusher grass
and brush should encourage parent quail to produce a more abundant
hatch in the spring.
Town and city dwellers won't miss out on the bonanza, although
their individual shares will be smaller than those of ranchers
and farmers. Shrubbery and lawns will benefit from the rainfall,
as most homeowners tend to under water in a season when they don't
see most of their plants green and growing, Bomar said.
Subjecting ornamental vegetation to water stress was very easy
the first two months of this winter, when Mother Nature was particularly
stingy. Abilene's December was as dry as any month on record,
when not a drop of rainfall was measured. And January's nine-hundredths
of an inch was scant improvement.
The 9-1/2-week winter drought followed a fall of generous rains
that raised Abilene beyond its average annual precipitation by
nearly 20 percent for the year recently past.
Wednesday's and Thursday's drought-breaker pulls the city's
rainfall above average to date for the young 1997 as well.
Besides the prospects of lusher vegetation, many rural residents
will realize another benefit from the soaking rains: lifting of
restrictions on outdoor burning by some county commissioners courts.
Taylor County Judge Lee Hamilton announced Thursday afternoon
the lifting of the burn ban in this county, while Shackelford
County Judge Ross Montgomery and Jones County Judge Brad Roland
each said a commissioners court meeting on Monday will decide
the issue. Each county now has a ban in effect, but each commissioners
court will consider lifting the ban on Monday.
Callahan County Commissioners were to consider imposing a burn
ban on Monday, a prospect made less likely by the onset of rain.
Comanche County Judge John Mack Weaver said his constituents
are grateful for the rain they received, but the county will keep
its burn ban for now.
"We've got a lot of dead stuff around here, and we're
not ready to lift ours," Weaver explained.
In the immediate Abilene area, rain fell intermittently all
day and will remain a prospect, off and on, for several more days.
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Copyright ©1997,
Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps Publications
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