LITTLE ROCK — Dow Brantley worked a combine Friday on one of the fields he farms near England.
“We’re doing real good, we’re probably about third of the way on our [corn] harvest and seeing average yields,” said Brantley, who has 9,000 acres in production, raising corn, rice, soybeans and cotton in Lonoke County.
Despite concerns about the severe drought that’s struck the state and much of the Midwest, early reports about the corn harvest in south and east Arkansas are positive as growers are starting to harvest corn and some rice. Other crops — including soybeans and cotton — are weeks away from harvest.
Like many farmers, Brantley was able to start his crops two to three weeks early this year, thanks to a mild winter and early spring.
While overall crop yields are still up in the air around the state, the drought that’s hit Arkansas has imposed another toll on farmers: the expense of running pumps to irrigate fields.
“I’ve spent a ton of money watering,” Brantley said, noting his fuel bills “are unbelievable.”
This week, 75 percent of Arkansas was listed in extreme drought — with a third of the state listed as being in “exceptional” drought, the worst category on the scale used by the National Drought Mitigation Center in Lincoln, Neb.
To keep up with the heat, Arkansas farmers are relying heavily on increased irrigation, using water pumped from reservoirs, rivers, streams and aquifers.
At the end of July, the state’s corn harvest is at varying stages, said Jason Kelly, an agronomist with the University of Arkansas System Agriculture Division.
But so far, yields are looking good in the state’s southern counties.
“We irrigate 90 percent of our corn,” said Kelly, unlike farmers in states to the north and northwest of Arkansas.
He said the heat and drought so far have had a minimal impact on south Arkansas corn, but he expects that will change as more northerly fields are harvested. Kelly expects yields to drop because those fields were planted later, which means the plants had to deal with more heat and dry weather, making it harder to mature.
For 2012, growers planted 666,000 acres of corn, a 17.8 percent increase over the amount planted a year earlier and more than was planted for a traditional Arkansas crop, cotton. The state’s cotton acreage is down 14.7 percent this year to 580,000 acres.
“It feels good to make a good yield. We’re still better off than those boys in the Midwest that can’t irrigate,” Brantley said.
Farmers and agriculture officials are unsure how the heat is affecting other crops, but they remain optimistic.
Phil Sims, chairman of the Pope County Cooperative Extension Service office, said where fields are irrigated, crops are satisfactory. However, nonirrigated crops are in trouble, he said.
Pope County, adjacent to the Arkansas River in northcentral Arkansas, is in the driest part of the state and carrying the “exceptional” drought designation.
“The river valley probably has a higher percentage of nonirrigated than what the rest of Arkansas has,” said Sims, who estimated that about 50 percent of the corn, rice and soybean acreage in the county isn’t irrigated. He said pastureland and fields used for hay — more than 100,000 acres — have been especially hard hit.
Rice and corn harvests won’t begin for a few weeks, he said. He said there are some good cornfields in the county, but predicting the yield will be difficult. He said the rice crop should do fine because it’s irrigated.
“We’ve watched shower after shower roll past us,” Sims said. Irrigation is key, he added. “It’s nothing for these pumps to run 24/7 during conditions of extreme heat,” which can cost thousands of dollars per month.
Farmers within the White River Irrigation District have seen energy costs to pump water climb by at least $5 million this year, said Dennis Carman, the district’s director and chief engineer.
The district is working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on the $450 million Grand Prairie Area Demonstration Project, which will provide White River water to about 264,000 acres of farmland using pumps, pipelines and canals in Prairie, Arkansas, Lonoke and Monroe counties.
Carman said the district contains 150,000 irrigated acres for soybeans, 80,000 for rice and 20,000 for corn.
He estimates that in a normal year, it typically costs district farmers $68 per acre to irrigate a field — the cost of the fuel or electricity to run a pump that takes water from a reservoir, stream or well. But that cost has jumped to $85 per acre because of the additional water needed because of the drought.
“They started irrigating earlier. They have never stopped and we’ve not had any rain to speak of,” Carman said. “So their costs are up because they’re pumping more well water. ... And that’s high-dollar water.”
Chuck Wilson, director of the Rice Research and Extension Center for the University of Arkansas System Agriculture Division, agreed it’s too early to predict the drought’s effect on the rice harvest.
“To be honest, I’m really looking for a pretty good crop, barring any disasters from here on out,” he said. “Not only in yield, but in quality.” He said nighttime temperatures — mostly in the 70s — have been conducive to good milling yields.
“The main issue with drought and rice is that it puts so much pressure on irrigation ... and that increases cost,” Wilson said.
Some farmers struggle because they don’t have the capacity to keep up with irrigation needs, he said. But, given that rice is irrigated, drought isn’t as big an issue for rice farmers.
Rice farmers increased the amount of rice acreage planted in Arkansas by 21 percent this year, to 1.14 million acres, compared with 940,000 acres in 2011.
Soybeans planted early in the season should do fine, according to Jeremy Ross, an extension service agronomist who specializes in soybeans. However, those planted later are likely not going to do as well because of the heat and drought.
“Everything that was planted up to about the middle of April looks good,” Ross said. “Anything after the May-June planting, especially everything that was planted in the last month and half, looks pretty rough.”
Historically, about 50 percent of the soybean crop is harvested by mid-October, he said. He said a good yield in the early part of the harvest could offset poorer results later in the year. This year, growers planted 3.2 million acres of soybeans in Arkansas.
Ross said farmers were able to get an early jump on plantings this year, which means soybean blooms and pod formations typically are running about 30 percent ahead of the five-year average. If the crop had got off to a normal start, he said there would have been a lot of heat stress on young plants at the wrong time in the growth cycle.
“Right now, irrigation is only way really to eliminate stress,” Ross said. “But I’m hearing guys’ reservoirs are drying up just because they haven’t had any rain to replenish their reservoirs.” And, some wells are starting to dry up because of heavy use.
“We’ve still got a long ways to go,” said Ross. “It could still get pretty bad but I’m hoping something will turn around” and the weather will improve in September.
Business, Pages 27 on 07/28/2012