Southern Colorado farmers enjoying end of drought conditions

This time last year, farmers in Southern Colorado were forced to fight through drought conditions. However, thanks to the recent spring showers and winter snows, farmers are eagerly working with a lot more water.

According to numbers from the National Weather Service and Colorado Department of Agriculture, the amount of water stored throughout the entire water basin is 330% greater than normal for this time of year in southern Colorado. Just look at the Arkansas River Basin, the water is currently more than eleven inches. That’s significantly higher than the average of 3 to 5 inches for this time of year.

“I’ve been chasing the water and putting in 14-to-15-hour days,” said Dan Hobbs of Hobbs and Meyer Farms.

The Avondale farmer has 40 acres worth of heritage grains, Pueblo chiles, and garlic. Thanks to the rainfall over the weekend, Hobbs worked a 15-hour day on his certified organic farm during Memorial Day.

“All the watersheds in the state are above average this time of year, which is a pretty rare occurrence,” said Hobbs. “We are in good shape and the runoff hasn’t even started, so we are looking to get more water here shortly.”

Hobbs says this time last year, he was working in drought conditions and dealing with grasshopper infestations, which have since subsided. Due to this, the farmer was forced to leave a large amount of his land unplanted.

This year, he’s able to work with every available acre at his disposal.

“When you are farming on a very small acreage every acre counts for your bottom line,” said Hobbs. “It was a skinny couple of years these past few years without all our acres planted, and the reason for that is we couldn’t irrigate them all.”

Hobbs says the ruling is still out on whether this year is a success. However, if there are more 15-hour days, that tends to be a good sign that things are going well.