Wet Weather Hurting Oklahoma Wheat Farmers' Crops

Months of cloudy skies and wet weather is leaving many fields soaked. If the weather keeps up, farmers fear it could hurt their profits.

Sunday, February 14th 2010, 11:53 pm

By: News 9


By Jon Jordan, NEWS 9

ARCADIA, Oklahoma -- Months of cloudy skies and wet weather is leaving many fields soaked. If the weather keeps up, farmers fear it could hurt their profits.

For most the constant cold weather and lack of sunshine is more of a downer than anything else, but for wheat farmers and ranchers it's so much more. It's literally the difference between making money or losing it.

On the east side of Arcadia sits 240 acres of wheat and alfalfa. This field is better known to lifetime family farmer Curtis Roberts as his livelihood, but his land has seen better days.

"It's muddy especially in lower spots where we've still got water standing," said farmer Curtis Roberts.

So much of Roberts' fields are soaked that it's making it impossible for farmers like him to get their equipment out to fertilize their crops, which was something Roberts was planning on doing soon.

"The longer we wait, we won't get the results from our fertilizer and you wait so long you don't put it on and you take it as is," Curtis Roberts said.

Farmers are eager for the fields to dry up so they can apply their second round of fertilizer, said Ron Hays, agriculture expert and director of farm programing for the Radio Oklahoma Network. The network is owned by NEWS 9's parent company, Griffin Communications.

"You're trying to feed the plant and when you do that it will increase the number of bushel," Hays said.

Hays said the fertilizer also helps produce a better quality crop, something he said is still possible if Mother Nature co-operates.

"If we get another three or four of these storm systems pulsing through the southern part of the United States, that could be a big big worry by the first of March," Hays said.

Until then, wheat farmers like Roberts realize there's little they can do.

"In the farming industry you can be concerned but it doesn't pay to worry, it doesn't help," Roberts said.

Now fortunately Hays said even without a second coat of fertilizer, wheat farmers can still turn an average crop. However, the last few years haven't been kind to wheat farmers which is why a good crop this year could make all the difference.

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