LUBBOCK, Texas—In more than four decades of farming, South Plains cotton producer Rickey Bearden says he’s never seen an early growing season like this one.

In the past month, the world’s largest contiguous cotton patch has endured seemingly blast-furnace conditions as unseasonably high temperatures and almost daily strong winds have sucked valuable moisture from soil and whipped plants with blowing sand.

All of his dryland acres are a total loss, just a month after they were planted.

“I’ve been here a long time and I seen it blow,” he said, “but not like this. Not for this long, this strong and this dry.”

Across Texas, the nation’s leading producer of cotton and cattle, heat and drought conditions combined with skyrocketing input costs could lead to record losses in agriculture this year.

The loss tally for all crops and livestock, which won’t be figured until later in the growing season, could top the largest single-year loss of $4.1 billion set in 2006.

“It’s a whole different scenario than we’ve ever seen as far as the potential loss,” said Travis Miller, Texas AgriLife Extension Service drought specialist. “We’ve lost a whole lot of money because there’s a whole lot more gone into those crops.”

On Thursday, burn bans remained in 111 of Texas’ 254 counties and much of the state was in moderate, severe or extreme drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor map. Last year at this time the entire state showed no drought.

May was drier than normal and June has been even drier, said state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon of Texas A&M University.

“If it stays dry a couple more weeks we’ll see a lot more in extreme” drought, he said. The 90-day outlook could spell some relief. The state forecast is for normal rainfall and temperatures, Nielsen-Gammon said.