OPINION: An Unpredictable Old Gal
It's been a rough start for farmers. Drought is only part of the problem. Warm temps followed by freezing nights are harming summer's apple and peach crops.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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The only thing you can say for sure about Mother Nature is that she is a very unpredictable old gal.
And the only thing you can say about weather forecasters is that their five-day forecast is about as useless as teats on a boar hog.
How many times in the past 10 months have the forecasters predicted rain — heavy rain, copious amounts of rain, “take the big umbrella” rain — five days out only to have that day wind up with a light drizzle or more likely, sunny skies.
I, of all people, should know better than to trust a five-day forecast. Recently, I had a crown come off a tooth and the only day the dentist could put it back on was the following Tuesday. But Tuesday is the day my buddies and I play golf.
But when I looked at the five-day forecast, I noticed it said “rain” for Tuesday so I figured our golf game would probably be called off. So, I opted for the early appointment. Guess what? Tuesday was sunny and my buddies played without me. Never trust the weathermen or Mother Nature.
We need rain badly, heavy rain, a three-day soaker. I have been preaching this since last August. If we don’t get several good rains pretty soon, wells are going to start failing this summer.
Only once since last July have we (at my house) gotten more than two inches of rain in any one month. Our average is about 3.5 inches a month. And most of the rains we did get were of the two- or three-tenth variety. Very little if any of the moisture drains down into the water table. Most of it is either soaked up by roots — especially this time of the year — or it evaporates.
We need rain badly. Oh, yes, we laud the beautiful spring weather and all those 80-degree April days, but to those of us who till the soil, a three-day soaker would be preferable to sunny skies.
I tilled up the watermelon patch a couple of weeks ago and both my tractor and I were covered in dust within 15 minutes. It was really too dry to till, but the job needed to be done.
My corn and bean seeds lay in the ground for 10 days with no moisture for germination until the Saturday night showers. Hay is growing very little, and spring grass will be short again this season. The only good thing about this drought is that we’re not having to buy $4 gas to mow the lawns.
It has been a lovely spring so far, at least from an aesthetic perspective, but the nature of this growing season has had devastating effects for some.
The warm days in March brought out buds and blooms a little early, and when I passed my buddy’s peach orchard back in early April and saw the trees in full bloom, I got a little concerned. But when I passed his apple orchard 10 days later and saw those trees in full bloom — a good two weeks earlier that average — I figured my friend might be in trouble.
This spring has been unusual in the sense that substantial periods of very warm temperatures, which bring out blossoms, have been interjected by a day or two of January cold with freezing temperatures overnight.
Freezing temperatures in April are nothing unusual, but when they follow warmth that has tricked plants into thinking it is summer, well, bad things occur.
“The first freeze [on April 8 it got down to 29 degrees] did quite a bit of damage,” said Eddie Williams, who operates a family orchard near Flint Hill in Rappahannock County. “The second one [Apr. 21 with temperatures as low as 26] was devastating. I don’t think I’m going to have a single peach — and very few apples.”
This is the second year in a row that a freeze has devastated Williams’ peach crop and with hundreds of trees, that a lot of lost revenue.
Williams sells apples to commercial juicers, but the bulk of his income comes from individual sales at his store on the farm. If there are no apples and peaches to buy, the customers won’t come, which means they won’t be there to purchase the tomatoes and a few other vegetables he raises.
Both freezes burned my potatoes, but they will survive, although their growth will be slowed considerably.
The second freeze (and accompanying frost) killed all the new leaves and blooms on my walnut (again, out too early) and cherry trees. No cherry cobbler this spring and probably no nuts to crack in November.
It is not starting out as a good season for farmers. The war in Iran had pushed fertilizer prices to twice what they were three years ago, and diesel fuel is closing in on $6 a gallon. First hay is going to be short and if it doesn’t rain, pasture and water will become a serious problem for cattlemen, not to mention the drought’s effects on corn and beans.
As I said, droughts and freezes are nothing out of the ordinary. One year back in the late 1990s, the temperature got down to 28 degrees on May 22. I lost half my tomato crop.
And droughts occur every few years, but usually they are limited to the summer months and into the early fall. I do not recall a single one that lasted almost 10 months, as this one has.
But then, every year, every growing season and every moisture cycle is different. That’s just the way nature operates.
Still, we need rain and three-tenths at a time is not going to cut it. We need sod soakers, gully washers and downpours.
I suspect that it will take the remnants of a tropical system to replenish the underground water table. Hurricane season starts Jun. 1.
Riding down I-95 to Richmond the other day I saw an unusual sight. It was pouring rain on the northbound lanes, but we were not getting a drop 200 feet away on the southbound lanes.
Mother Nature can sometimes be a little strange.
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