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A YEAR IN THE LIFE OF A DESERT FARMER By DON C. McCAIN, Farmor Yuma, Arizona ~ When Cliff Tabor, Project Manager of the Wellton-Mohawk Irrigation anele Drainage District, asked me to fill this part of your program, "A Year in the Life of a Desert Farmer", I declined. I de- clined because I am not a full time farmer, however, I later consented when Cliff said that in that I farmed in two of Yuma's water projects and was familiar with the agriculture of the other four dis- tricts, he felt I was qualified to speak on desert farming. So today I stand before you wearing three hats, one, as a struggling fertilizer salesman, anoth- er as a struggling desert farmer and a third hat that might best be characterized as concerned - - con- cerned as to whether goest we in agriculture. Many years ago I was working out a problem on a sandy portion of a farmer's farm and I kept referring to it as sandy until he couldn't stand it any longer. Then he said, "Don, if we are to get along and remain friendly, would you refer to that part of my farm as light." I live and farm on the lightest soil farmed in the Southwest - - the Yuma Mesa, a desert soil classed as Superstition Sand. This light soil, blessed with ample water and our wonderful growing sea- son produces the finest lemons grown anywhere, one of the best desert grapefruits and an acceptable valencia orange. We love our 300 acres of peanuts and recently petitioned through the ASC office for some of the 8,000 acres in the national reserve, but the Secretary of Agriculture said no. This was initiated when the local ASC office sent up a trial balloon asking if any farmers in Yuma County would be interested in growing peanuts, the response was indicative of a troubled agri- cultural community - - requests for 10,000 acres were asked for by the first week - - our area needs crops that have a decent profit potential. The other farming projects of Yuma are on rich Alluvial Valley soils formed either by the Gila or Colorado Rivers or both as in the Bard or Yuma Valley areas. I also farm citrus in the Yuma Valley and there my expenses are only a part of those on the Yuma Mesa. The prime reason is water and weeds. The sandy soils - - oops - -light soils of the Yuma Mesa require three or four irrigations to one for the heavy valley soils and waterings reflect an expense _ _ irrigation costs and water created weeds that have to be controlled. Yuma now leads Phoenix as the number one area in citrus acreage in Arizona with all five ir- rigation projects in Yuma participating in that acreage. Desert regions are not frost free but we do en- joy over 300 days of freedom from frost. Taking advantage of that, we force the season on cantal- oupes, watermelons, tomatoes, potatoes, and can plant our cotton in February. In 1965 Yuma County lead the nation in short staple cotton yields, 1688 pounds lint per acre, and was second in 1966. This year was a fiasco - - the year of the Pink Bollworm. Just as a spot of Texas Root Rot spreads in an alfalfa field, totally destroying plants where it first contacts new roots and then allowing for new plants to be planted behind it next fall and then sustaining that growth the next year, so do pink bollworms go through a cotton community. This year it nearly destroyed us, and next year we can and will learn to live with it and our yields will, with skiprow patterns, climb back up to 3Y2 to 5 bales per acre. Alfalfa was our brightest profit crop this past year, reaffirming that supply and demand still work in agriculture. Just as prices started to slump after our second and third cuttings last spring, the rains came to Central California and the price came back to thirty to thirty-two dollars per ton. In July, fields turned to seed and harvested before Katrina, a tropical storm from Mexico, -21-