Texas 2023 Drought Impact

It always starts out wet in the spring, so you have little warning that a drought is in the works. We had a wet and cool spring. As I waited for the ground and weather to warm up I decided to compare four different indigoferas.

Two were collected from wild areas with no clear identification or knowledge how they came to be in the area. I call them Junction and Bastrop. Both are found in river flood areas in the general area of these cities in Central Texas.

The Junction seed was gifted to me but was older seed, one season past when I would normally plant a seed. Foragers had collected the leaves for paint making and were generous in sharing seed and showing me their gathering buckets. I noted that these plants had very delicate stems and smaller leaves than the South Carolina sourced Indigofera Suffruticosa that I normally grow. The seed itself looks very much like tinctoria, the long string bean type of the Indigofera Tinctoria that is grown in many geographic areas.

The Bastrop seed had definite curved short pods which I collected from plants so I knew I had the optimal planting timing. This species as well had very delicate stems and small leaves compared to the IS that I grow. I did manage to collect a substantial amount of plant and seeds. The plant gave up the pigment easily. The seeds were very easy to germinate and I’ve set aside a portion for a second year try once I see how they fare this year.

The third seed was a Indigofera lindheimeriana I purchased from Native American Seed. I can find little practical information about it as indigo producing. It also came as seed so I had no clue what the seed pod looked like. I will grow it to see how the seed pod looks. In the literature it is presented more as a landscaping plant. It will be a good control plant to grow alongside the two wild indigos. Perhaps it will resemble one of them and confirm if they were a native species to the Hill Country Edwards Plateau. And at the end of season I could always ferment it to see if it holds the blue or indeed is just a pretty landscape plant.

And as usually I germinated my seeds from my South Carolina Indigofera Suffruticosa for replacement plants of the cruel freeze we had in Jan/Feb 2023. Below are my seedlings as of May 18th and their germination notes.

I typically cover my plants and use heat lamps but we were out of town when an unforecasted deep freeze hit and took out about half my seed plants. Yes, I know, cover the plants before you leave town. But I can assure you 20 degrees and ice was NOT in the 10 day forecast. I probably will add hoops to support frost free cloth this year to avoid this type of travel mishap.

I put off planting my seedlings as tiny crickets love baby indigofera plants when it is cool and wet. I used that time to clear the dead IS , dig & fertilize the beds for plant prep and prepare the irrigation and armadillo fencing. Racoons and armadillos love seedling plantings. They dig up the seedling to look for grubs. I always dig a decoy hole away from my plants and water it generously to attract the diggers. So far it has worked plus a small fence around my plant area. My seedlings were all ready to roll in mid-May but it was still coolish and buggy outside. So I held them inside a screen area to protect them from spring rains and hail and rotated them to keep them from getting leggy.

About mid-June we took a massive temperature jump from 80’s to 106. Yikes, summer is here very early. Not ideal weather for seedlings. I put the plants in carefully around the drip irrigation and for the first time ever put up some shade cloth so the new plants could get acclimated to the heat. That shade cloth has stayed up in June, July and part of August. I decided they need to sink or swim in the heat and as temperatures “lowered” to the mid 90’s. I need to see their adaptability to our Hill Country climate so I pulled the shade cloth in late August when temperatures “lowered” to 100 degrees, a “normal” temperature for that time of year.

The plants have lived but all 4 species were very reluctant to grow. They stabilized, took hold of the dirt and filled out but height was not an option during our 100 degree plus days which went 45 days in a row. Usually by August I have happy 5-6 foot Indigofera Suffriticosa plants and have harvested pigment at least one or two times. Not this year, we are in survival mode for seeds and pigment is looking doubtful at this time. Unless more leaves make an appearance in late September.

As of August the Junction seeds are showing their seed age and were very scraggly. The Lindeheimer has daintily filled out and has a beautiful shade of green. The Bastrop took the heat in stride and along with my SC Indigoferat Suffruticosa filled out and looked “comfortable”.

None developed height until the temps dropped to the mid-90’s in very late August and early September. My two year old Indigofera Suffruticosa got a better grow attitude and are now at 3-4 feet. The Bastrop is a bushy 18″ and happy. The Lindheimer is still dainty at less than 1 foot but is still leafing well. The Junction seed is flagging, drooping, not filling out and is just not happy. I think Junction is deciding to leave the building unless we get more cloud cover, which with this drought, does not appear to be in the books soon. Looking at the leaves the SC IS and the Bastrop leaves are very similar. The Lindhiemer and Junction have small and daintier foliage. All plants are more columnar shaped and have few branches and leaves compared to a normal “wetter” summer.

I will clip some stems and do a visual comparison for you on my next blog entry. But I’ll leave you with this comparison of two of the plants.

Tags: Indigo, indigo suffruticosa, record keeping