Cotton Harvest Under Way In Southwest Oklahoma

Cotton fields in southwest Oklahoma are in full bloom and farmers like Matt Muller are beginning to pick their crop near the Quartz Mountains.

Tuesday, November 11th 2014, 2:11 pm

By: News 9

Cotton Harvest Under Way In Southwest Oklahoma

Leslie Smith, Radio Oklahoma Network - Cotton fields in southwest Oklahoma are in full bloom and farmers like Matt Muller are beginning to pick their crop near the Quartz Mountains.

"Where we have irrigation water yields are good," Muller said. "They are average to above average actually because we had a nice July weather pattern that really helped us along with what limited irrigation water we had. Unfortunately due to the ongoing drought the dryland crop is going to be way below average."

This fall year marks the fourth consecutive year of drought. Muller is just glad he has something to harvest.

"It means better ability to cash flow, Muller said. "This will be a year I won't hurt my insurance yields quite as bad. I can actually sell a crop and get paid for that even though prices are quite low. Farmers live to produce, I have a passion to produce things, so I want to grow and I like to see harvest and like to harvest what I grow."

But that doesn't mean it hasn't been mentally tough.

"I have been able to put food on the table, yeah I'm not successful in the aspect of being able to produce good yields like I like, but there is more to life than that," Muller said. "It's taught me a lot of patience."

In walking cotton fields its evident just how dry conditions are. Muller is also in the midst of planting his wheat crop, but had to stop due to the dry conditions.

"The wheat crop you know doesn't have a chance to come out of dormancy and do very well if we don't get some rains or snows soon," Muller said.

For more agriculture news log on to: http://oklahomafarmreport.com/