Kansas is the leading wheat-producing state in the country, and the ongoing drought in that state is having a devastating effect on the wheat crop. Kansas State University’s Mary Knapp, service climatologist in the university’s agronomy department, said this year’s wheat harvest could be “one of the worst on record” because of the ongoing drought. While this will have an effect on food prices and the general economy, it also will have an effect on horse feeds and wheat straw used for bedding.

Knapp said in an article, “It takes about as long to recover from a drought as it did to reach drought status, so if it has been three years in the making, it will take three years or more to recover from the drought effects. And even getting more rain may not improve drought status.

“You can have a drought punctuated by a flood and still be in a drought,” Knapp added. “If the rain comes too quickly, it doesn’t have a beneficial component.”