Despite recent rains, North Central Washington is far behind the average for annual precipitation. The U.S. Drought Monitor includes most of Douglas and Okanogan counties and parts of Chelan County under a “severe drought.” That means lean times for ranchers and dryland wheat farmers who depend on the little precipitation the area receives.

“I think this last crop — in Douglas County — we raised a crop on probably 7 to 5 inches of moisture,” noted Kevin Whitehall of Central Washington Grain Growers in Waterville. “We should be 10 to 11 inches. There’s just no subsoil moisture left.” He said that many farmers have been dusting-in seed — planting in dry soil — and hoping for precipitation. Recent precipitation has helped, but still isn’t enough. Rain and snow on Oct. 13 produced three-tenths of an inch of precipitation in Waterville. “We’ll take anything we can get,” Whitehall said. “But we need 4 to 5 inches.”

Dryland wheat farmers in Douglas County have seen very low crop yields. “Last year’s crop was the smallest crop the company had since 1992,” noted Whitehall. “And this crop we just cut here in July and August was smaller than last year’s crop,” he continued, and compared the last few years to 1977, ’78 and ’79, the last extended drought that adversely affected wheat crops.

As for how the drought has affected ranching, “It’s bad. It’s very serious,” said Howard Asmussen of RR Ranch in Loomis in early October. “It’s more serious than many people think.” Asmussen estimates that this is the fourth or fifth year of drought conditions in the Okanogan.

“The drought and the grasshoppers have just wiped us out. We have springs going dry that have never gone dry. I’ve never seen it as bad as it is now,” said Asmussen, who has been ranching for about 60 years. “We’re probably going to have to sell cattle.” He said that 30 to 40 percent of the herd might have to be sold and layoffs are probable.

Gerald Scholz of Tonasket has also resigned himself to selling a portion of his herd. “Right now, I’m hoping to get in a quarter to a third. ... I’m hoping no more than that.” Scholz said he has had to graze land he usually hays because of low yield and, in turn, has had to buy hay and haul water to feed his cattle. “It’s very expensive. In this economy I can’t hardly bear it.”

“The grasshoppers came in this year and devastated my fall crop, that’s due to the drought,” noted Scholz.

Keane Ranch east of Rock Island has also been hit by the drought. “It really affected our crops this year,” said Jeff Keane. “Crops are bad and stock water is short. One major creek dried up.

“It’s killing on the crops and the cattle. ... They just seem not to be satisfied at all with the grass. We didn’t have a lot of the extra early grass that we get with nice, warm spring rain. We went from winter to spring to summer, but we didn’t have any rains in between. About the only thing that was growing was our native bunchgrass. It’s a good grass, but you need those Junegrass and cheat grasses in between.

“It’s bad. One thing is that down in this part of Douglas County droughts are a way of life,” conceded Keane. “We don’t get a lot of rain or big snows. We could always use more water.”

Rochelle Feil Adamowsky: 664-7153

feil@wenatcheeworld.com