Drought hitting farms hard in Northern Utah

PROVO — Rex Larsen planted fall barley seeds for next year's harvest in a dry, dusty field, while praying for rain.

Other farmers in Palmyra are doing the same, unable to coax the seeds along with fresh water they don't have. Without rain, next year's growing season looks bleak for some.

Most farmers will likely squeak through this season with low water supplies — but it's a spotty, complex problem, says Dean Miner, the Utah County director of Utah State University's agricultural extension program.

In the northern regions of the state, the drought is even more severe, Zane Stephens said. Stephens assists state climatologist Donald Jensen at USU.

"From Ogden north it's been extremely dry the last four months," he said. Cache Valley moisture is down 50 percent with no storms supplying a quarter inch of rain since June 13, he said. In the southern regions the drought becomes more moderate.

While the Olympic snowpack in the Park City area may be adequate, "we won't be able to show the world how great our snow is," Stephens said.

Miner says farmers will face a crisis next year if a lot of snow doesn't fall this winter. Utah County, a chief agricultural region in the Beehive State, is in its third drought year.

Water shortages were particularly acute in the north Utah County — or where supplies are based on spring runoff that farmers count on to fill small American Fork Canyon reservoirs.

Areas from Cedar Valley to Pleasant Grove have little access to stored water. Some farmers in those areas use sprinklers, which help fight the shortage because that watering system uses less water, Larsen said.

"The Cedar Valley area is really struggling," Larsen said. "They've only had one crop of hay, and they usually have two or three (during a season)."

Earlier this season, Larsen had to find supplemental irrigation water — which doubled his cost — so he could harvest alfalfa, corn and barley. "In a normal year I don't have to do that."

Cattle ranchers also have felt the shortage. Ranchers who run cattle in Payson Canyon had to start two weeks late and bring the animals down two weeks early this season, he said. The shortage of water cost them a month of grazing.

But Larsen was a bit luckier. He runs his cattle into Diamond Fork grazing land, where there was plenty of grass and weeds.