MALTA, Mont. (NMB) – As this hot and dry summer drags on, the drought has continued to accelerate across the Hi-Line, with the entire region facing conditions ranging from severe to exceptional drought.
Wade Jones is a Malta-area irrigator and the President of the Milk River Joint Board of Control. He says one of his most urgent concerns is a hay shortage.
“I’m maybe, if I’m lucky, (going to get) half of the hay I put up. So when you look at it as a business, I’m only going to have half my hay income. And also I’ll be selling cows in another three weeks to a month just to make the cowherd fit the haypile.”
It’s not just the drought itself that is wreaking havoc, but also the surge of grasshoppers in the region.
“The USDA APHIS prediction unfortunately came to fruition,” says Phillips County Extension Agent Marko Manoukian. “We’ve got literally sections (which are 640 acres), and I would say multiple sections of spring wheat that germinated and was growing in June and the grasshoppers literally ate everything in the field. I would say the same of rangelands. We sprayed over 37,000 acres with APHIS on our rangelands, and I would say we sprayed over half a million acres of crop ground, because most crop growers in the small grain and even lentil category had to spray their crops three or four times to keep the grasshoppers out. And the bad part is is once they’ve got wings, they can show up during the day and really make life miserable for folks. So it’s huge. I don’t think we’ve really got our arms around the economic impact of the grasshoppers to this point.”
And Jones says that even some precipitation in the coming months won’t remedy all the issues the drought has caused.
“It’s gonna be years of impact, I think. It’s going to take half the year next year just for stuff to recuperate. Even if we have moisture, it’s been such a devastating drought this year that until next year, we don’t know what it’s done to the plants.”
MSU-Extension has issued a report on the ongoing drought and how to access resources to assist those suffering due to the drought. For more information, contact your local extension office.
