By Clint Thompson
The current dry spell impacting the Southeast could impact upcoming preparations for vegetable production, especially in South Georgia. The area, along with a patch in North Florida, is suffering through a prolonged dry period leading to exceptional drought designations in previous releases of the U.S. Drought Monitor.
If the drought continues, it will likely hinder growers’ abilities to prepare for the spring planting season, says Ty Torrance, University of Georgia Cooperative Extension vegetable agent for Colquitt, Tift and Worth counties.
“I guess primarily for us (the drought) would be filling back up those irrigation ponds, and it’s affecting our ability to lay new plastic. We typically start laying plastic on Dec. 15 or so. Everybody doesn’t obviously, but a lot of people do try to start before Christmas and on into January; even the beginning of February. A prolonged dry spell like this would definitely have an impact as far as that goes,” Torrance said.
“They have to have adequate bed moisture to shape beds, form beds and to lay the plastic. It just won’t lay properly and the lack of moisture also affects the efficacy of the fumigants.”
The lack of moisture is also significant with respect to pond levels. Many farmers use ponds to irrigate their crops, which is concerning since pond levels are drastically low. Producers need a water source to keep their crops properly irrigated.
“It’s definitely been an extended dry spell,” Torrance said. “We saw reports where they published about the Floridian aquifer and those levels, and I know they were significantly depleted. We’ve got to have rain to recharge all of our irrigation ponds and aquifers and everything that we pull from.”