With all the recent rains, farmers in southwest Kansas have a bright outlook for the wheat crop and summer harvest,reports The Garden City Telegram.Finney County farmer Jarvis Garetson called the April showers a godsend. “It changed our dryland crops from poor conditions to very good,” he said.
Garden City, in the month of April, received over four and a half inches of precipitation. That’s far above the region’s average of 1.74 inches for the month of April. In fact, this year saw the second wettest April on record, trailing only April 1977, when the area got over six inches of rain.
The wet month bring the yearly total up over five inches. 98 percent of the state is no longer in a drought, and only a very small portion of southeast Kansas is continuing to see drought conditions. According to the Field Crops Report for Kansas, as of Tuesday 90% of the winter wheat crop is rated as fair, good, or excellent.