Kansas itself is short on cattle to put into summer grazing programs, Jones said. The state is in a much lighter stage of drought than areas to the south. At the same time, winter's dry conditions sent an unusually high number of Kansas stockers to the feedlot. If we have a normal spring and summer and start to get some good grass, we could need more stockers. Relatively speaking, we don't have many cattle left.
Grasses tend to make best use of any available moisture.
Even so, the timing and distribution of rainfall can be as much, if not more important than its quantity. The state average was 61 percent. Kansas' long-term outlook called for spring to be wetter than winter, as usual. Nonetheless, the national Climate Prediction Center at NOAA was and still is predicting significantly higher temperatures and lower precipitation for the state during March-May. Last year's droughty conditions didn't start until August, thus helping the state harvest a big hay crop, Knapp said.