The Natural Resources Conservation Service is warning that the warm, dry weather this spring could drive up winter hay prices.
Wyoming’s snowpack is less than 30 percent of average, and Water Supply Specialist Lee Hackleman says farmers who get their water by diverting streams and rivers will be left high and dry.
“There’ll be a lot of people who will probably get their first cutting irrigated but won’t have any water for their second cutting,”
Hackleman said. “So there’s liable to be a hay shortage again this winter.”
Hackleman says people who get their water from reservoirs should be OK, since the reservoirs are still full from last year. But he says everyone else will have much less water than usual to work with.