Drought update.
North Dakota’s drought conditions are worsening.
Farmers are well aware of how dry it is.
Russell Wagner is cutting 400 acres of Conservation Reservation Program land for feed, but it’s not nearly enough forage to get his cattle through winter.
Other livestock producers are cutting poor quality small grain crops like oats, barley, and hard red spring wheat for hay.
Wagner feels more than 50% of North Dakota’s CRP land should have been opened up for haying because the need for feed is so great and the quality of CRP hay is marginal.
Penny Nester, Kidder County Extension Agent: Unfortunately CRP has isn’t typically the highest quality because it has a lot of old dead material in it so it’s not going to be a very high feed value, however it’s great for filler.
Clay McPeak, Kidder County Farmer: "Some of it’s a bale an acre, some of it’s a little more, or it’s less, it’s not real good."
Penny Nester: "Typically drought doesn’t only affect one year of production, it may affect more than one year of production."
Nat sound of bale being made…. "If we don’t get rain this year, we don’t get a good snowfall this year, we could have drought next year and that just escalates the issues and problems associated with that."