Ponce
13th December 2010, 04:41 PM
Because no rain, to little rain, to much rain, cold weather......and so on, we don't the food that we need right here in the states and much less to send to others outside of the US.
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Farmers across the South contend with drought.
By RAY HENRY
The Associated Press
Published Dec 12, 2010 09:26PM
Updated Dec 12, 2010 11:49PM
Lyons, Ga. • Farmer Aries Haygood grabbed the top of a freshly planted onion and gave it a gentle pull. The green plant sprang from the ground with little resistance, a sign its roots weren’t grabbing hold because the powdery soil is too dry.
“Right now, we should start seeing that the roots are catching, and they’re not,” said Haygood, who was supervising planting of Vidalia onions on his fields. “The main reason is because we have not had the rain on them.”
Farmers across the South are contending with abnormally dry weather and a drought that began this spring. Crops in dry fields then baked during stretches of record-setting summer heat that scorched peanut fields, stressed cotton plants and stunted citrus fruit.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has declared disasters in parts of 16 states, with some of the driest spots in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia and Florida.
Just 18 inches of rain have fallen since July on Toombs County in southeast Georgia, where Haygood and his workers had just planted four rows of Vidalia onions inside earthen beds running up and down his field. That is half as much rain as last year and less than what fell during the state’s last major drought that ended in 2009.
The county is one of the state’s largest onion producers — a crop worth $83 million in the state in 2009 — and specializes in the famed Vidalia onion.
Conditions are not ideal for onion planting. Haygood pointed to the sandy, crusty topsoil on his field, then kicked his work boots an inch or two deeper to find what he wanted: moister, darker soil.
“Last year it wasn’t as dusty, it wasn’t as powdery,” he said.
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Haygood irrigates his fields, though free rainfall helps. Heavy irrigation can cost up to $45 in fuel and electricity an acre every month, or thousands of dollars in additional expenses. Like many farmers, he said fields that benefit from the right amount of natural rainfall tend to produce more crops than even properly irrigated fields.
The dry spell will likely continue in Georgia. UGA professor David Stooksbury, the state’s climatologist, said dry conditions are common after a wet winter like last year’s that was caused by the El Niño weather pattern.
“It’s not unusual that come mid-April for the system to kind of flip and go into a dry period,” he said.
Three-quarters of Alabama’s land are either abnormally dry or in a drought. Conditions are worst in east-central Alabama near the Georgia line, where some areas are about 10 inches below normal for the year after going without rain for more than two months during the crucial late-summer growing season.
“It has really devastated the peanut and cotton crops, and the cattle producers have been feeding hay since midsummer. The pastures where they graze was just bone dry, and the grass just didn’t grow,” said horticulturist Chuck Browne, the extension coordinator in Lee County, Ala.
“Our farmers were digging peanuts this fall, and they’d pull up the plants and there would be no nuts in the shells,” Browne said.
Too little rain makes for smaller oranges, grapefruits, tangerines and tangelos in Florida, said Louis Schacht, manager of Schacht Groves in Vero Beach, right in the middle of the state’s most-drought afflicted pockets.
“The fruit’s less desirable on the foreign markets, Europe and Japan,” he said.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/world/50861075-68/dry-farmers-fields-drought.html.csp
================================================== ==========
Farmers across the South contend with drought.
By RAY HENRY
The Associated Press
Published Dec 12, 2010 09:26PM
Updated Dec 12, 2010 11:49PM
Lyons, Ga. • Farmer Aries Haygood grabbed the top of a freshly planted onion and gave it a gentle pull. The green plant sprang from the ground with little resistance, a sign its roots weren’t grabbing hold because the powdery soil is too dry.
“Right now, we should start seeing that the roots are catching, and they’re not,” said Haygood, who was supervising planting of Vidalia onions on his fields. “The main reason is because we have not had the rain on them.”
Farmers across the South are contending with abnormally dry weather and a drought that began this spring. Crops in dry fields then baked during stretches of record-setting summer heat that scorched peanut fields, stressed cotton plants and stunted citrus fruit.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has declared disasters in parts of 16 states, with some of the driest spots in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia and Florida.
Just 18 inches of rain have fallen since July on Toombs County in southeast Georgia, where Haygood and his workers had just planted four rows of Vidalia onions inside earthen beds running up and down his field. That is half as much rain as last year and less than what fell during the state’s last major drought that ended in 2009.
The county is one of the state’s largest onion producers — a crop worth $83 million in the state in 2009 — and specializes in the famed Vidalia onion.
Conditions are not ideal for onion planting. Haygood pointed to the sandy, crusty topsoil on his field, then kicked his work boots an inch or two deeper to find what he wanted: moister, darker soil.
“Last year it wasn’t as dusty, it wasn’t as powdery,” he said.
Story continues below How to make your crystal glassware sparkle
Published Nov 24, 2010 04:12:02PM 0 Comments
Government to offer settlement with Indian farmers
Published Oct 19, 2010 01:39:00PM 0 Comments
Farmers, ranchers align with groups opposed to crop subsidies
Published Oct 1, 2010 09:49:23PM 0 Comments
Haygood irrigates his fields, though free rainfall helps. Heavy irrigation can cost up to $45 in fuel and electricity an acre every month, or thousands of dollars in additional expenses. Like many farmers, he said fields that benefit from the right amount of natural rainfall tend to produce more crops than even properly irrigated fields.
The dry spell will likely continue in Georgia. UGA professor David Stooksbury, the state’s climatologist, said dry conditions are common after a wet winter like last year’s that was caused by the El Niño weather pattern.
“It’s not unusual that come mid-April for the system to kind of flip and go into a dry period,” he said.
Three-quarters of Alabama’s land are either abnormally dry or in a drought. Conditions are worst in east-central Alabama near the Georgia line, where some areas are about 10 inches below normal for the year after going without rain for more than two months during the crucial late-summer growing season.
“It has really devastated the peanut and cotton crops, and the cattle producers have been feeding hay since midsummer. The pastures where they graze was just bone dry, and the grass just didn’t grow,” said horticulturist Chuck Browne, the extension coordinator in Lee County, Ala.
“Our farmers were digging peanuts this fall, and they’d pull up the plants and there would be no nuts in the shells,” Browne said.
Too little rain makes for smaller oranges, grapefruits, tangerines and tangelos in Florida, said Louis Schacht, manager of Schacht Groves in Vero Beach, right in the middle of the state’s most-drought afflicted pockets.
“The fruit’s less desirable on the foreign markets, Europe and Japan,” he said.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/world/50861075-68/dry-farmers-fields-drought.html.csp