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Southeast Colorado | 2011 ranks as one of the nastiest of our nasty drought years. That was the year that the insurance companies allowed farmers here and south into TX to start windshield wiping half circles of corn instead of trying to irrigate the entire circle. We could tell that you could pull more bushels out of the field by giving up on half of it. The thing that was unique about that year here was that the nights quit cooling down. Typically even when we have upper 90s and 100 degree days, it will still cool down to at least the 60s and often time the 50s due to our 4,000 ft elevation. That year we had a lot of 70 and 80 degree nights and wind that just wouldn't quit. I had an irrigated circle of corn that I applied 30" of irrigation water on that made 76 BPA.
The thing about that year too is that it started a string of 4 really bad years in a row where we accumulated only 20" of total precip in 4 years and 3 months. I would have probably been smart to just walk away after 2011 but I reckon I've never been very smart. The last 2 years have been pretty good but we're still coming out of the hole that we dug deep. | |
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Interesting graphic: Comparison Drought maps over the last few years
