“My oldest son was born on the Fourth of July 39 years ago, and it was too wet to plow, and cool,” remembered farmer Charles Speed. “This year, it was all over by the Fourth of July.”
Speed’s plight is pretty representative of area farming after a summer of brutal heat and little to no rain. Corn is especially hard hit, but other crops that are “good to fair” right now are in trouble if rain doesn’t materialize, Mississippi State University Extension Agent Reid Nevins told the Columbus Exchange Club Thursday afternoon at Lion Hills Center.
“Cotton and soybeans are still fair to good,” he said. “They’re holding, but right now soybeans are set in pods and cotton is set in bolls. This is prime time for rain to fall. If we don’t get it, it’s all going to go downhill.”
Rain will likely be too late for corn, Nevins said.
“It depends on where you are, but corn, it’s about done, really,” Nevins said. “It’s just burnt up. It hasn’t got a drop of rain since it was in tassel, and if it got rain now it would be too late.”
Nevins said last year some farmers saw more than 300 bushels per acre, but they will be lucky to get half that now.
Speed, who farms just over the state line into Pickens County, Alabama, was more succinct.
“It burned up,” he said. “It didn’t mature because of the heat.”
That’s pretty much the case with everything else, too.
“My tomatoes are wilting and not setting any fruit,” he said. “My peas, instead of a pod full of peas, there will be three or four in a pod. You can’t sell that kind of quality. My snap beans turn loose from the hull before they mature.”
Even okra isn’t cooperating with high temperatures consistently in the high 90s and sometimes in the 100s.
“Okra likes the heat,” he said. “But it’s stopped doing well because it’s so hot for this time of year. It’s just an ugly year.”
Cattle farming is facing similar problems, according to both Nevins and Speed.
“Cattle farmers are already feeding hay,” Nevins said. “If you’re feeding hay in July, it’s bad. One of our guys told me his pastures are burnt up, and he’s going to have to get rid of some of (his cows). It’s getting serious.”
Speed said he had cut his herd from about 60 head down to 10.
“You can throw a match on the ground and the hay field will burn up,” he said. “I think I’ll have just enough to get me through, but, again: no rain, no hay.”
On top of the dry, hot conditions, the price of fuel and fertilizer has shot up.
“It’s been crazy,” Speed said. “The cost of fuel has doubled, and the cost of fertilizer has probably gone up 40, 50, 60 percent from last year. With ammonium nitrate, the sun sucks it out of the ground if you don’t get some rain to activate it. You’re just throwing it away.”
Parts and equipment costs just add to the burden, Speed said.
“You’re behind the eight-ball right from the start,” he said. “On top of fuel and fertilizer there’s equipment costs. If you break down, finding parts is going to be hard. There is no inventory anywhere. ‘It’s on a boat, we’re waiting on a boat to get unloaded.’ It’s like everything we do is trouble.”
Speed remained at least a little optimistic.
“We’ll get through it,” he said. “Seasons change. It’ll change.”
Brian Jones is the local government reporter for Columbus and Lowndes County.
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