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NMSU Provides Website On Drought-Related Issues

  As New Mexico continues to struggle through extreme drought conditions that show no sign of abating, ranchers, farmers, and even homeowners will increasingly have to make do with less precipitation and available irrigation water for their livestock, crops, and home gardens and landscaping.

A lack of water can also cause changes in ecosystems; for example, some poisonous plants and noxious weeds may out compete grasses and other forages on rangelands, which can be dangerous for cattle.

New Mexico State University's Cooperative Extension Service has a wide variety of educational publications to help New Mexicans face these issues. A new website, www.aces.nmsu.edu/pubs/_drought/, provides easy access to the listing of these publications.

"Historically, people have accessed these publications through their county Extension office or through the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences website," said Jon Boren, NMSU Extension director. "But we wanted it to be easier for people to find the various publications that deal with issues associated with drought, so we created this new one-stop location."

Topics of these publications range from agronomy to livestock and rangeland management to home gardening and landscaping.

Subjects range from agronomic principles to help with farming during drought periods and drip irrigation for row crops; from various weed poisoning of livestock and horses to using byproduct food stuffs in grazing nutrition; and from landscape water conservation to how to build low-pressure drip irrigation systems.

The publications can be downloaded and read in various versions including html and pdf, and some are even available in eBook format for e-reader devices.