Commentary by Roger Martin Martin writes about research at KU for Kansas media and in a Web zine. Contact Martin at rmartin@kucr.ukans.edu or (785) 864-7239. Martin also can be heard on KANU 91.5 FM public radio Archives More articles by Roger Martin Subscribe now to receive KU News by email

Drought can affect everything from landscape to economy

by Roger Martin

You know this Kansas drought you've heard about?

It's history.

It'll be pouring rain by the time these words reach you.

In sheets, in buckets. A gully washer, a toad strangler.

How do I know? Because droughts and stock market corrections don't exist to impoverish farmers and investors.

They exist to embarrass journalists who write gloom-and-doom stories about them.

The last time I wrote about a drought, down came the rain, drowning out my commentary.

So I'm going to write about this drought and put a stop to it.

Because it's serious.

Guy name of John Lomas e-mails me the other day. He's a research analyst over at the Kansas Applied Remote Sensing program, KARS for short. It's a University of Kansas research program.

Researchers usually don't buttonhole me with their latest discoveries. They prefer to lurk.

So Lomas' e-mail got my attention.

He's been looking at maps made by KARS. The maps are part of a product called the Green Report.

These maps can tell you how green and lush -- or brown and dry -- the state looks one week of one year compared to the same week of another year.

Well, this year the Green Report is the wrong name for the product. Brown Report would be more accurate.

The maps showed that in the last week of March, a whole bunch of the southern half of Kansas that's west of Wichita was much less green than usual.

National Weather Service maps, meanwhile, show that since last October, the vast majority of the very same area has had one-quarter or less of the moisture it normally receives.

Lomas has compared the late March 2002 map with the late March 1996 map. They look alike and, Lomas notes, winter wheat yields that year were only 50 percent of normal.

We're talking about a potentially huge impact on the economic health of Kansas farmers, which ultimately impacts everybody's pocketbook.

So like I said, it's time to put the brakes on this drought.

Kelley Kindscher's my secret weapon. He's an associate scientist with the Kansas Biological Survey. It was Kindscher I interviewed the last time I wrote about a Kansas drought -- bringing down the cats and dogs.

Back then, Kindscher told me that crabgrass and purple-flowered henbit, which had been elbowing their way into my herb garden, would make out like bandits during a drought. So would something called cheatgrass. With a name like that, doesn't it just figure?

This time Kindscher talked about John Weaver, who studied drought in Nebraska during the Dust Bowl.

Kindscher said that native species with shallow root systems would be the first to die in a multiyear drought. Prickly pear cactus would pop up in western Kansas. Shortgrass prairie would likely march from western Kansas into eastern Kansas.

But, Kindscher added, we can still have a normal winter wheat crop in most places if we just get some rain. Lomas agreed.

It's got to come soon, though. Like yesterday, maybe.

Well, I'm doing my part. I've told you how bad the drought is and what happens if it continues.

C'mon, Mr. Weather, make a fool out of me.

Show me what you've got.

Or do I have to dance, too?