For Nevada ag producers, ‘it’s just getting worse and worse’

Dan Knisley stands at drought’s ground zero. In a field where wheat grew last year, there’s now little but stubble and dirt. There’s no water to allow planting and like many farmers in the Lovelock area — one of the places hit hardest by a drought now three years in duration — Knisley is forced to leave fields bare. “It is a grief to be a farmer without water and not be able to plant or harvest or be involved with what you like to do in life,” said Knisley, 50 and a third-generation Lovelock farmer and rancher. “When you watch the land die, that kind of stuff is no fun,” Knisley said. Agriculture, a mainstay Nevada industry deeply rooted in history, is feeling some of the biggest impacts from a drought many call historic in its intensity. It’s being felt at fields tilled by farmers like Knisley. It’s being felt on the open range, where cattle crunch across a dry landscape in search of limited forage and scarce drinking water. The country’s most arid state is no stranger to drought. Its farmers and ranchers are no strangers to dealing with it. Still, many agree this event stands out and stands out in a big way. “It’s the worst that I’ve seen, without a doubt,” said Jay Davison, a Fallon-based crops specialist with the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension.  While spring rains helped improve a dismal scenario for cattle grazing on public land, the situation remains serious, and “conditions have stressed all resources on the public lands making grazing throughout most of Nevada unsustainable at permitted levels,” according to a May 16 statement issued by the Bureau of Land Management. “It’s just getting worse and worse. These are really dry conditions,” said Mark Coca, vegetation management specialist at Nevada BLM. BLM has asked some ranchers to voluntarily halt grazing in some hard-hit areas and more decisions affecting grazing on public land are likely later this summer, Coca said, adding that similar problems exist in other western states hit hard by drought. Water hauling has been authorized in some locations, he said...more