By Clint Thompson
Increased rains in Alabama have provided difficult weather conditions to grow tomatoes. That’s according to Chad Smith, who grows tomatoes in St. Clair County in the central part of the state.
“It’s been pretty challenging,” Smith said. “Like I would prefer for it to be dry versus too wet. It got to a point where it was a little too dry, but like I said, I’d rather work in that element over the rain. At least when it’s dry, you can go to work. But when it’s raining, you can’t spray, you can’t irrigate, can’t fertilize, can’t do your plants, all that stuff on time like normal. And not just that, but it hurts the crop really bad as well. It’s been pretty much one of the tougher years for sure.”
Rain’s Impact
Rainfall can lead to a decrease in fruit quality and appearance, impacting the fruit’s marketability.
“When you go to put it in a box and then it can be five, six days later, you’re going to have some blight issues, different things that can make it rot and stuff like that from too much rain,” Smith said. “So not only does it affect the appearance, but it can affect the quality of it lasting as well.
“So yeah, the only things where it doesn’t matter is if you’re selling something for food service, which is your smaller size tomatoes and stuff, because they’re cut to use. A lot of our production, I say 3/4 of our production, is more for retail type use over the food service side. Appearance and quality and all that’s a thing that we got to have for sure.”
Drought Monitor Update
According to the July 30 release of the U.S. Drought Monitor, Alabama has very little drought, mostly situated in the southern and northern halves of the state. St. Clair County has sufficient moisture.
“We’ve had our share. I know even like the states north, like Tennessee, North Carolina does a lot of tomato production there, and they’re getting their fair share of it, too. There are weeks that we’ve had more and there are weeks they’ve had more, but I watch even like down y’all’s way, in South Alabama and South Georgia, I know y’all had your shares at certain times. But I think a lot of our regions up around this way have probably got the most here recently,” Smith said.