Aerial view of Hurricane Harvey flooding on Gundermann Acres farm near Wharton County, Texas
Hurricane effect on Texas crops
Corrie Bowen, Wharton County Extension Agent, estimates that of the county’s roughly 80,000 acres of cotton, only about 50 percent had been harvested before Harvey made landfall. Total Texas estimates are that there were 200,000 bales of cotton lint still on the stalk when Harvey hit, valued at $62.4 million, and another 200,000 harvested bales impacted by flood waters. These cotton modules damaged by floodwaters will likely have to be destroyed due to decreased lint quality and seeds sprouting in the module.
The impact of floodwaters on the rice crop is not known at the time of this writing. The concern is on the potential contamination by substances carried by the floodwater. The Food and Drug Administration has indicated that their water quality concerns are primarily for rice fields located near urban areas and Superfund sites, which are areas identified by the Evironmental Protection Agency as contaminated by hazardous waste.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is not expected to have its first estimates of crop damage and related agricultural industry impacts until the end of 2017, so the true impact on agriculture is not avaialable at the time of publication. USDA offices were also flooded, resulting in a dispersal of USDA employees to temporary work locations. The 54-county area affected by Harvey also contains about 1.2 million beef cows (27 percent of the state’s cow herd).
irrigationtoday.org 23
Charles Swanson, MAgr, is an extension program specialist in the biological and agricultural engineering department at Texas A&M.
Swanson manages the Texas Evapotranspiration Network and works in promoting irrigation water conservation through evaluation of smart irrigation technologies, development of irrigation
recommendation programs and delivery of specialized training programs for irrigation managers.
Guy Fipps, PhD, PE, is a professor and extension agricultural engineer at Texas A&M. Dr. Fipps has devloted over 25 years to improving irrigation efficiency, developing new technologies and
promoting managing water use more efficiently. He was chosen as the IA’s Person of the Year in 2015.
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