Associated Press

COLORADO SPRINGS — Drought has wiped out half the state's wheat crop with losses estimated at half a million acres and $100 million, a magnitude not seen in the state since 1969.

Farmers and ranchers warned Friday of dying orchards, liquidated cattle herds and crops plowed under for lack of water when they met with U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman. On Thursday, Veneman declared all of Colorado a drought disaster area.

The designation makes farmers and ranchers eligible for low interest federal loans.

"Right now the winter wheat crop is at 40 to 45 million bushels and declining," Darrell Hanavan of the Colorado Association of Wheat Growers said. "An average crop is at 84 million bushels."

Colorado is experiencing the worst drought in decades. And on Friday, temperatures soared across the state to record highs of 93 in Colorado Springs and Denver, 102 in Pueblo and 98 in Greeley.

Some of Colorado's famous Rocky Ford cantaloupe may survive because growers are using drip irrigation to conserve water and are sacrificing other crops to direct most water to the melons, said Frank Schweissing, superintendent of the Arkansas Valley Research Center.

Irrigation ditches are very short of water. Some farmers have only 12 days' supply of stored water left for the summer, said Schweissing.

"We have only 12,000 acre-feet of reserve water. When that's gone, we're done," said Wayne Whittaker of the Catlin Ditch near Rocky Ford.

Most farmers cut their planting by at least one-third anticipating water shortages, but there may not be enough water even for that.

"With corn, you need August and September irrigation and we may not have any water then," said Whittaker.

T.L. Henderson of the State Bank of La Junta said ranchers are liquidating one-third or more of their cattle herds.

Livestock auction sales in La Junta are extending "clear through the night," Henderson said.

June 2, 2002

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