Cold, wet weather promotes some crops, hinders others

A U.S. Department of Agriculture agronomist checks a spinach field for insects. (USDA-ARS photo by Peggy Greb) COLLEGE STATION - - Cold weather, in some instances accompanied by drizzling rain, came to much of Texas, temporarily delaying harvests.

In most instances, the cold put the handbrake on warm-season grass growth, their reports stated. Where it came, the moisture was for the most part welcome, and added to November rains, greened up winter pastures.

However, as with anything in Texas' diverse agriculture, what's a silver lining for some is just a dark, storm cloud for others. In many areas, planting of winter pastures was delayed by wet field conditions. Now, with overcast skies and cooler temperatures, the growth of already planted pastures has been slowed.

Collin County, like much of North Central Texas, has had a particularly hard time with too much of a good thing, said Rick Maxwell, that county's AgriLife Extension agent for agriculture.

"We estimate that only about 30 percent of our total small-grain acreage was planted for both wheat and oats," Maxwell said. "Only about 30 percent of the acreage planted to winter pasture was planted also because of the wet fall. Acreage that was in corn last year that would have been planted to wheat this fall will probably be planted back to corn."

Southwest Texas also received wet weather, but vegetable crops are doing fine this year, said Dr. Larry Stein, an AgriLife Extension horticulturist based in Uvalde who works closely with fruit and vegetable growers.

"The wet weather hasn't really hurt the growth; it just hindered the harvest," Stein said. "The quality is excellent. Cabbage quality is excellent. Spinach quality is excellent. The one thing that hurt us a little was the cold snap a few weeks ago that hurt the spinach, but it recovered and we're actively cutting now."

Stein said producers are switching to growing baby leaf spinach to meet market demands. About 3,000 acres of fresh spinach grown in a year is harvested in the winter in his region. About the same acreage in spinach is grown for processing. Average yields are between 20 to 26 tons per acre.

"I'd encourage people to buy spinach," Stein said. "The quality is outstanding."

Stein noted that there's never been a problem with E. coli on Texas-grown spinach.

"Our spinach has always been perfectly fine," he said. "We've hand-harvested the stuff for years, but recently we've strictly gone to machine harvesting. Now we're doing an even better job of harvesting it and keeping it clean."