Weather frustrates local farmers
Albert Ferens is frustrated. His farming this season is one month behind schedule and he is in desperate need of dry weather to help his crop mature and prepare for harvest.
Ferens is not alone in his predicament.
After two months of heavy rains and wet conditions, many area farmers are suffering with rotting crops and are three to four weeks behind in their planting. And, according to Jayanna Yeakle, spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, farmers will be hard pressed to harvest any substantial crops this year.
“It just rains and rains and rains, and farmers can’t get anything planted,” Yeakle said. “The crops that are planted are drowning and rotting.”
Yeakle said farmers across the state are suffering from the wet conditions, and it may be too late for many of them to get their crops planted, let alone harvested.
“The season is too short,” she said.
Ferens, whose farm is along Bute Road in North Union Township, recently cut his first crop of hay and was disappointed with the results. He said that after filling the silo on his farm with 39 loads of chopped hay, the rest of the harvest is unusable.
“The rest is very poor quality and has lost most of its nutrients,” Ferens said.
Ferens usually plants about 300 acres of corn, 100 acres of beans and “lots” of alfalfa grass for hay. He said that while his crops are planted, he is concerned about the upcoming harvest.
“I’m frustrated. It is going to hurt if it keeps up,” he said.
While time is running out for crops this season, the National Weather Service in Pittsburgh said that there might be a break in the clouds and rain in the coming weeks.
“It should have broken already,” a weather service spokesperson said. “The jet stream has been to the north, allowing moist air from the Gulf to be trapped by an upper low.”
According to the spokesperson, the weather service is forecasting clear skies for most of next week.
But Don Fretts, the extension director for the Fayette County Cooperative Extension Office, said the damage already has been done.
“It has had a very negative effect,” Fretts said. “Any low-lying area with this amount of rain is in standing water.”
Fretts said that while the crops need water to grow, they also need air that is naturally, under normal conditions, provided in the soil. When the conditions are so wet, the air is pushed out of the dirt, causing a deficiency for the crops. He said the rainy season, which began May 3, has not slowed, and plants have not had time to breathe and are drowning.
The National Weather Service station in Pittsburgh recorded 6.16 inches of rain in May, almost 2 inches more than last year’s total for the month and near the all-time May record of 6.60 inches, set in 1858. The 30-year average rainfall total for May is 3.8 inches. The weather service also has recorded 2.79 inches of precipitation as of Friday for June, with the 30-year average for June at 4.12 inches.
While the past two months have been wet, the rainfall totals for the year remain close to normal. According to the weather service, the 2003 rainfall total as of Friday was 17.97 inches, just 1.31 inches above the normal of 16.66 inches. And with an average annual rainfall of 37.85 inches and the annual record rainfall recorded in Pittsburgh at 52.24 inches in 1990, the year totals to date are not astronomical.
Regardless, the recent heavy rains are still taking a toll.
“It is really bad as far as just getting crops planted,” Yeakle said.
She added that farmers are trying to plant a breed of faster maturing corn and other crops to try to harvest before the shortened growing season is over. Fretts is advising similar measures to help Fayette and Greene County farmers combat the soggy conditions. He said that farmers can plant corn and soybeans that are of a shortened season variety, allowing time for farmers to get their harvest in.
“Just get them harvested as soon as you can,” He said.
While the soaked conditions would seem to curb any possibility of a drought later in the season, Fretts is not so optimistic. He said that the wet soil has not allowed root systems to develop on many crops and will cause them to dry faster if a drought should occur.
Yeakle disagrees.
“With all the saturation, I just don’t think there is much chance of a drought,” she said.