Area farmers pleased with heavy rains in region

Jim Chandler of Portales was in a tractor planting high-protein hay grazer Friday afternoon as he talked about the steady rain that has been falling on eastern New Mexico farmland since the last days of June.

"This is absolutely the kind of rain we need," he said.

The hay grazer crops he has been planting over the past couple of weeks are already showing green, he said, which is encouraging.

He planted hay grazer this year instead of corn because that's what his dairy-farmer clientele is looking for.

"We tried to get away from corn this year, because it uses too much water," he said.

Henry Martin, a Curry County farmer, said the recent rainfall benefits both his grain sorghum and silage silage sorghum crops, which are used for cattle feed.

He said he had saved about $2,500 in unneeded irrigation water since the rain started, but there is another benefit to natural rain, Martin said.

"It has a higher nitrogen level," he said. The added nitrogen, he said, makes it so the crop is not merely sustained, "it gets bigger and better."

Beef cattle ranchers are also reaping benefits, according to Sen. Pat Woods, a rancher based near Broadview.

Neighboring ranchers, he said, have been "shipping cattle out of here like you wouldn't believe," due to this summer's parched conditions.

Woods, however, said he has been relying on silage to keep his herds fed during the long dry spell that came before the most recent rains.

Woods said he also grows feed crops, including hay grazer, and has stored silage in piles under plastic, which has protected the silage from rain damage.

Woods said the recent rains have wet the soil down to 10 inches below the surface, which, he said will sustain a crop of hay grazer for "a couple of months."

Like Chandler, Woods said he was in the process of planting new hay grazer when the rain started last week.

"It's still short, but it's good to see it coming up green," he said.

At the Goodwin Lake Walking Trails Park, Erik and Anne Nelson were admitted they probably should have brought a little more product, as they'd sold most of their stock in an hour. The Nelsons, who farm out of Broadview, have come to the park the last few weekends ahead of this week's official opening of the farmer's market. Clovis sales are 5 p.m. Tuesday and 8 a.m. Saturday at the park, while Portales goes Mondays and Thursdays at 5 p.m. at it lot on the 100 block of Avenue B. The Nelsons anticipate a good bunch of crops when they're joined by other vendors.

"Nobody's gotten hail, or nobody's told me (if they have)," Erik Nelson said. "The rain's going to help everybody."

Mason Grau, agricultural agent for the Curry County Cooperative l Extension Service said farmers he has spoken with were very happy to see last week's rain.

David Dubois, New Mexico's state climatologist, is cautious about how long the rain's benefits will last.

"It has certainly helped," he said, "especially on the east side of the state."

Ranchers, however, are still "selling off lots of cattle" in eastern New Mexico due to the months of dry weather before last week's rains, Dubois said

"It is still going to take a long time to recover" from months of drought conditions, he said.

In De Baca and northern Chavez counties, he said, the rain has not been sufficient to correct dry conditions, even though rain in Eddy County, further downstream along the Pecos River, the rain caused floods.

Dubois is maintaining a "wait and see" attitude as he monitors the rest of the monsoon season in New Mexico, but, he said, hoping for a "summer of good, continuous precipitation."

"We need a longer-term recovery," he said.

Editor Kevin Wilson contributed to this report.