Alfalfa, Hemp, Other Crops, Regional Roundup, Southern Region, Sunflowers, Texas

Alternative crops offer producers diversification

By HPJ Staff
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Sunflowers (Photo courtesy of Amberlyn Brown.)

Across Texas, alternative or nontraditional crops continue to find a significant role in many farming operations because they offer crop diversification or an additional opportunity for late-season planting after failed crops.

While some crops are limited by contract availability and marketing options, Texas producers plant almost 1 million acres of alternative crops such as sunflowers, sesame, Sudan grass, alfalfa and hemp, said Calvin Trostle, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service agronomist, statewide hemp and alternative crop specialist, and professor in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Lubbock.

While rains have been scattered around the state, conditions in the lower South Plains and South Texas have improved slightly from severe drought, he said. However, the Panhandle region has not changed much in recent weeks, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

PHOTO: Sunflowers (Photo courtesy of Amberlyn Brown.)

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