{"id":46603,"date":"2021-05-25T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-25T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/la-plata-county-farmers-tighten-belts-during-dry-season\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:32:46","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:32:46","slug":"la-plata-county-farmers-tighten-belts-during-dry-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/la-plata-county-farmers-tighten-belts-during-dry-season\/","title":{"rendered":"La Plata County farmers tighten belts during dry season"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Wayne
Wayne Jefferies, a farmer in La Plata County east of Durango, is expecting a tight year. Low snowpack means less irrigation water and smaller profits for the county\u2019s agricultural community. (Shannon Mullane\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Shannon Mullane\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

After a low-snowpack year, La Plata County farmers and ranchers are tightening their belts and praying for rain.<\/p>\n

Irrigators who draw from Lemon Reservoir in northeast La Plata County expect less water this season than their neighbors who draw from Vallecito Reservoir, a 13-mile drive to the east. Everyone, however, expects less irrigation water than average and a shorter growing season with fewer crops, higher hay prices and less profit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a bad year, but it\u2019s not as bad as 2018,\u201d said Wayne Jefferies, who receives water from Lemon Reservoir for hay and pasturing livestock east of Durango.<\/p>\n

In Southwest Colorado, the snow-water equivalent \u2013 or the amount of liquid water held in snow \u2013 was at 31% of its historical median as of Friday, according to Colorado Snotel<\/a>. The county was in the most severe categories of drought identified by the U.S. Drought Monitor<\/a>: extreme and exceptional drought.<\/p>\n

Lemon Reservoir is expected to fill to 40% to 50% of its overall capacity, 40,146 acre-feet. As of Sunday, it stored 17,867 acre-feet of water.<\/p>\n

Vallecito is expected to fill to 65% to 70% of its overall capacity, 129,700 acre-feet, based on U.S. Bureau of Reclamation forecasts. It stored 70,193 acre-feet as of Sunday.<\/p>\n

Those who draw from McPhee Reservoir in the Dolores area are facing even less<\/a>: The reservoir is predicted to fill to 32% of its capacity, 295,000 acre-feet. That\u2019s enough for irrigators to receive just 1 inch per acre of irrigation water, or 4.5% of the 22 inches per acre provided when the reservoir fills.<\/p>\n

Jefferies hopes the water will last until mid-July, but he expects to run out of irrigation water by early July.<\/p>\n

\"Wayne
Wayne Jefferies, a farmer in La Plata County east of Durango, said he will be able to grow a fraction of his normal hay production. (Shannon Mullane\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

When the irrigation water is more plentiful, Jefferies might produce 6,000 to 8,000 hay bales. This year, he estimates he\u2019ll produce about 1,500 \u2013 and that\u2019s being conservative.<\/p>\n

\u201cKnock on wood I\u2019ll get one-fourth to one-third of my normal production,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

His goal is to spend this year managing his land to prepare the soil for next year, 2022. He might rotate the cattle that pastures on his land more frequently to minimize their impact on the soil, or he might do a higher cut of hay. Cutting higher on the stalk leaves more plant matter on the ground to protect soil moisture, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone plans for the worst and hopes for the best,\u201d Jefferies said. \u201cIf we really get into a bad situation, people might have to get a job or sell off assets.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Wayne
Wayne Jefferies, a farmer in La Plata County east of Durango, is already focused on preparing his land for next year, 2022, in hopes of a better irrigation season. (Shannon Mullane\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

J. Paul Brown, a rancher in the Ignacio area, takes most of his 1,600 sheep into the high country each year. There, he expects they\u2019ll have the water they need.<\/p>\n

But at his ranch, which draws irrigation water from Vallecito Reservoir, he\u2019s cutting back.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just praying for rain. I don\u2019t know how long the water will last,\u201d Brown said. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to have as much water through the whole season as we usually do, but we\u2019re going to try to stretch it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

He sold off cattle in the fall and winter of 2020 and expects to keep the herd to half of its normal size, 150.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we can get through the summer,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re cutting back by half, so we should have plenty of feed and water for the cattle and the sheep.\u201d<\/p>\n

That also means he\u2019ll lose half of his normal income for cattle. And if it stays dry, there won\u2019t be as much hay feed, and the cattle and lamb won\u2019t gain as much weight as they could, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat has a huge financial impact on us,\u201d Brown said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had droughts before and we got through them.\u201d<\/p>\n

But this is the kind of year when ranchers skimp and depend on \u201cused horse shoes rather than buying new,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s just a lot of things you won\u2019t do just because you don\u2019t know exactly what the future\u2019s going to hold,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

smullane@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Snow-water equivalent at 31% of historical median<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46604,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[402,1587,28,1263,294],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-46603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-drought","tag-farms","tag-headlines","tag-ranching","tag-water-supply"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46603"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86950,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46603\/revisions\/86950"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46603"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=46603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}