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Article: Too dry to farm: Drought cripples Texas wheat farmers.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)
- Article from:
- Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service
- Article date:
- July 10, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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BUSHLAND, Texas _ Gary Wagner knelt in the hot Texas sun and pulled at some puny stalks of wheat growing on his 800-acre Panhandle farm.
They gave with no resistance, their feeble root systems barely penetrating the parched earth.
"I don't ever remember it being this dry," Wagner said. "It's a wreck."
"Wreck" describes many Texas fields. Six years of nearly continuous drought have crippled wheat farmers, and this summer promises little rain, forecasters say. Drought has threatened to affect everything from the supply of drinking water and municipal water use to the likelihood of wildfires.
For Texas farmers, the drought fuels what they ...