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Kirsten Couevas and her husband Nathan are surrounded by cows, chickens and pigs on their Sublime Pastures farm in Tomé, south of Los Lunas.
But farmers know that what lies beneath the surface – soil and water – helps them weather extreme drought.
Farmers and ranchers in New Mexico are preparing for the state to immerse themselves in a “double bath La Niña” – the second straight winter of expected warm, dry conditions.
Kirsten Couevas has been working on building healthy soil with lots of organic material since taking over the farm in the Valencia region four years ago.
“The answer is not to leave land fallow, but catch crops and native grasses,” she said. “They keep that moisture that stays in the soil and then we store water and fight the drought.” Couevas modernized the pasture irrigation system to take advantage of the limited water allocations and overwhelming rainfall.
Kirsten Couevas, right, and Nathan Couevas try to keep their farm going amid a drought in Tomé. Farmers in New Mexico are preparing for a second straight winter with warm, dry conditions predicted (Roberto E. Rosales / Journal)
Smaller Kunekune pigs from New Zealand and Aberdeen Angus cows graze but don’t tear up the ground.
The Couevas use the animals for the so-called rotation pasture. The method leaves pastures dormant so that grass can grow back and the soil can better absorb rain or snow.
“We don’t waste water,” she said. “It’s about armoring the ground to prepare it for winter.”
Richard Strait, a soil scientist with the US Natural Resources Conservation Service, said snowfall in the area was “very slowly” beginning this year. “Usually the second winter (La Niña) is better than the previous one, and that’s what we hope for this year,” said Strait, who leads the agency’s snow surveys in New Mexico. “But we just don’t see it yet.”
The forecast of spring runoff depends on how much water is in the snowpack and in the soil.
The higher these numbers are, the more likely snowmelt will show up as a healthy flow in rivers and streams.
But there is not much snow in the mountains yet and the soil moisture decreases rapidly with the persistently warm, dry days.
“Those two combinations create a situation where things don’t look really good for the runoff in the short term,” Strait said.
Nathan Couevas waters his compost heap to keep it moist amid a drought in Tomé. According to the US Drought Monitor, approximately 70% of New Mexico is in severe drought, and northern New Mexico is experiencing the worst drought right now.
The snow water equivalent in the Upper Rio Grande Basin was 73% of normal at this time last year.
This year it’s 21%.
The peak of snowpack in the Upper Rio Grande usually occurs in March, giving the state a few months to catch up.
But even one large blizzard won’t be enough to beat two years of dry winters and a less impressive monsoons season for New Mexico.
“It has taken some time to develop this drought and it won’t be a quick fix to overcome it,” Strait said.
Dry forecast
According to the US Drought Monitor, approximately 70% of New Mexico is in severe drought, and northern New Mexico is experiencing the worst drought right now.
Arid conditions are likely to “widen and intensify,” said Andy Church, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Albuquerque, in the coming weeks.
“At some point we have to stop calling it drought and just call it our new climatology,” Church said. “I think we’re not quite there yet. But we tend in that direction. “
The forecast from the National Climate Prediction Center shows that the southwest is expected to have above-average temperatures and below-average rainfall in December, January and February.
In the past few weeks, temperatures across the country have been 10 to 20 degrees above normal.
Roswell reached 82 degrees on December 3rd, which is about 10 degrees above normal. Raton and Santa Fe both hit record highs earlier in the week.
Union County’s ranchers Kim and Red Miller are implementing rotary grazing to give pastures a chance to regrow, which they believe is key to management during drought. The family also sometimes harvests their flock to reduce consumption. (Courtesy Kim Miller)
The amount of precipitation was also gloomy at the beginning of the winter season. A small storm system in the last week of November brought the first measurable rainfall in almost two months to large parts of New Mexico.
Max Henkels, policy analyst with the New Mexico Department of Agriculture, said the “dire” forecast meant that farmers and ranchers could face “a long winter of difficult choices.”
The soils in the eastern plains were so dry, Henkels said, that some wheat farmers had to replant their fields because strong winds blew the seeds out of the dry dirt.
“Because of the good monsoons, most ranchers are still in better shape with regard to forage production than they were last year,” he said. “But as we see the monsoon effects wear off, we see things dry up.”
Ranchers prepare
While farmers in central New Mexico, up north, are crossing their fingers for snow, Union County’s cattle farmers Kim and Red Miller are relying on their best practices in dealing with drought.
Kim Miller said keeping grass and soil healthy is of paramount importance to the cow / calf farm near Grenville, in far northeastern New Mexico.
“It’s about responding to what the country can handle,” she said. “Sometimes you just don’t have that many marketable animals at the end of the season. The good years are a blessing, the bad years are awaited, and you are doing what you have to do to get through. “
The family also uses rotation pasture, and sometimes their herds, to reduce stress in the pastures. A stable stacked full of hay serves as supplementary feed when natural feed becomes scarce.
But doing business in a drought is expensive.
“Like everything else, hay is expensive,” said Kim Miller. “Diesel is high too, so even if you take out the hay your costs will go up. It leads us to look for certain genetics in cattle. We’re looking for cows with little input and that has been helpful. “
Long-term water supply
Decreasing snow cover is a major concern for scientists and water managers as they draw up the state’s 50-year water plan.
According to a climate leap ahead analysis by the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, average annual temperatures could rise between 5 and 7 degrees Fahrenheit over the next 50 years if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise.
Rising temperatures could make droughts more intense and more frequent.
The analysis also found that high altitude snowpack is expected to decline “very sharply” in the southwest, including the headwaters of the Rio Grande, by 2070.
Kristin Pearthree, a scientist with the office who backed the climate study, said these changes could affect the water available for agriculture and urban use.
“There could be decreasing snow cover and earlier and decreasing runoff of snowmelt due to a number of processes, including more precipitation falling as rain or snow evaporating into the atmosphere without draining,” Pearthree said.
New Mexico is also at risk of becoming a drier or drier state.
“If the atmosphere is warmer, it could really suck in more moisture from the surface like a big sponge,” Pearthree said. “That could reduce the amount of water we have available for power flow and recharging.”
For producers like the Miller and Couevas families, cultivating the dry land will always be a balancing act. Cattle sales are highly likely if the dry forecast hits.
“We’re trying to find out what the future holds for smallholders because it’s so difficult,” said Kirsten Couevas. “We cannot continue as before.”
Theresa Davis is a member of the Report for America Corps, a water and environmental researcher for the .
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