West Texas farmers use cover crops, clodding to fight soil erosion

LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) - You may still be cleaning dust out of some nooks and crannies from the storm that turned the sky orange nearly two weeks ago. The CEO of Plains Cotton Growers, Kody Bessent, says producers have improved a lot on preventing soil erosion.

The 1930s are remembered for dusty skies, particularly here in West Texas. Feb. 26 reminded some people of those Dust Bowl days.

“Now we did see some minor damages to some pivot irrigation systems that turned over, some structural damages to barns and houses and things like that,” Bessent said.

He says luckily there wasn’t any major damage, and not as much dust as we remember from history. Bessent says we have cover crops to thank, which are crops not planted intentionally for harvesting, but to cover the soil.

“Our area’s become very good about being more aggressive, planting cover crops to try to combat and reduce soil erosion,” Bessent said.

While cover crops are beneficial, he says they won’t stop soil erosion completely.

“It’s very difficult for that crop to mitigate some of the higher wind speeds. We saw 60 to 70 mph winds, and that certainly had a big impact on cover crops,” Bessent said. “It certainly takes out any type of moisture we might’ve had in the subsoil profile.”

And not every farmer can use cover crops because of the soil type in certain areas. So, to keep the soil on the farm and out of your home, some producers pull out the tractor.

“Some, if they get the opportunity, they’ll come in and till and they’ll clod up that dirt to make it more of a rocky-based form. Sometimes that’ll hold that soil in place so you have less erosion,” Bessent said.

Those who did have crops in the ground, like wheat, may have had some damage.

“It can sandblast it, literally burn it,” Bessent said.

The good news, Bessent says, wheat is better at withstanding a couple of dust storms. Also, the storm came before planting season for crops like cotton.

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