AGRIBUSINESS: Rainfall helps farms with ‘normal’ growing season

When farmers think back on this current growing season, chances are they will remember it as the year things returned to normal – as normal as farming can be.
All appearances indicate that crops are recovering from the hard years they had sustained since 2000. This year there was enough water to supply the crops – both dryland and irrigated – and most farmers in Northern Colorado had a pretty good year.
“Overall we are expecting 21 tons of sugar beets per acre and the average for the state is 23 tons per acre, so we are closer to average,´ said Jim Dudley, vice president of agriculture for Western Sugar Cooperative. “The sugar content is at 15.2 percent and the average for Colorado is 15.4 percent.”
Dudley said recent rains might be beneficial to the harvest because the increase in soil moisture allows the beets to be pulled easier. But, if the rain remains it could be detrimental and push the harvest back.
“Ideally we want to see about half an inch of rain in the week before the harvest,” he said.
The co-op has started its regular harvest and will begin storing beets for processing. The group is only processing beets at its Fort Morgan facility this year and as a result, processing will occur over a longer time period than in years past when the Greeley plant was in operation. This year’s campaign is expected to last into March.
Another cooperative in the area had a good harvest for its first year of operation. The Northern Colorado Pickle Cooperative consists of Northern Colorado cucumber growers who supply Dean Foods pickle operations with the vegetable.
The group consists of 16 growers in Johnstown, Berthoud and Milliken with 320 acres planted in cucumbers. Mario Herrera, president of cooperative, hoped at the beginning of the season to have an average harvest of 200 bushels per acre.
“Overall the co-op had a very good year, but as with all things there was a learning curve,” Herrera said.
The group ended the year with an average yield of 185 bushels per acre, but some fields produced more than 300 bushels per acre.
“This year’s crop was the good, the bad and the ugly,” he said. “One field had to be replanted in July, which led to a poor crop, and then there were other fields where the soil properties produced a tremendous crop. One field was over near Milliken and another was down south of Berthoud.”
Officials with Dean Foods were reportedly proud of the group and the obstacles they overcame.
“We learned so much this first year and I am thankful we only had 320 acres to watch,” Herrera said. “Now we can focus on what we need to improve on and work on our planting dates.”
Late summer hail damaged onion and corn crops near Eaton and Greeley, but otherwise the summer was good to the local corn crop.
According to Marc Arnusch, president of the Colorado Corn Board and a farmer in the Prospect Valley, dryland corn experienced one of its better years in recent memory.
“There was a timely rain for those folks – it is important to get the rain in late July and August,” he said. “And for the irrigated folks here along the Front Range there was enough water available in the mountain reservoir storage to supply them. The water availability on average was better.”
Arnusch said this was an average season with a slow growing crop due to cooler than average summer weather. The crop needs the heat of summer to properly mature and the cooler weather has subsequently delayed the maturity of the corn.
“We need an early frost to finish up decently … but not so much of a killing frost, just enough to help the harvest,” he said. “We need it to occur late in the process, so far we haven’t seen a frost down here yet.”
Winter wheat had a tough year, with abandonment of fields early in the growing season impacting yields. The state produced 45.9 million bushels and the 10-year average is 78.6 million. There were 2.3 million acres planted and 1.7 million harvested; approximately 26 percent was abandoned due to low spring moisture.
For the 2005 winter wheat crop, which will be harvested in July, 91 percent of the crop has been planted. Farmers expect to harvest about 2.3 million acres.
“The conditions are the best we have seen since ’99,´ said Darrell Hanavan, executive director, Colorado Association of Wheat Growers and Colorado Wheat Administration Committee. “We are looking at potentially 2.5 million acres.”

Kim Lock is the agribusiness reporter for The Northern Colorado Business Report. To suggest a column feature contact her at (970) 221-5400 ext. 222 or by e-mail at klock@ncbr.com.

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