Texas Cotton Farmers Face Unprecedented Crop Death Amid Deepening Drought and Aquifer Collapse

The 2026 drought has devastated cotton production across the Texas High Plains, prompting longtime growers like Lacy Cotter-Vardeman to declare that about 90 % of her dryland cotton has died—the first total crop loss on record. Satellite photos from Landsat illustrate stark contrasts with the previous year, revealing brown fields, reduced irrigation circles, and many playa lakes that have dried up. Groundwater in the High Plains aquifer has dropped 25-100 feet in Lubbock County since the 1950s, and even deeper declines in neighboring counties, causing wells to run dry and forcing farmers to irrigate only fractions of their fields.

Conservationist Tillery Timmons-Sims, who left farming in 2007, now works on water-credit schemes, renewable projects, and collaborations with NASA Acres and the Sandhills Area Research Association to apply space-based data for better water management. Recent NASA-led research using deep-learning has tracked playa-lake loss over three decades, underscoring the region’s mounting water stress. Experts say roughly seven inches of rain over three months would be needed to end the drought, highlighting the urgency for innovative solutions.