By Clint Thompson
Scattered rains last weekend in Southeast Alabama were a welcomed sight for producers. But considering the drought’s impact in the region, growers need those rains to continue.
“Right along the Houston-Geneva County, the southern parts of the county along the state line, it’s mighty dry,” said Neil Kelly, Alabama regional Extension agent in Southeast Alabama.
Almost all of the southeastern part of the state is suffering through extreme drought conditions, according to the April 30 release of the U.S. Drought Monitor. The southern half of Houston County along the Alabama-Florida state line is observing exceptional drought.
“We need significant rainfall. We are just bad dry right now,” Kelly said. “If you look at Montgomery (County), they’ve gotten a few rains that we have not; Montgomery north. You probably get up to the edge of Troy and parts of Pike County, they probably had one or two showers that we missed.
“The southern half of the southernmost counties in Alabama has just been terribly dry.”
Challenging Conditions
Fruit and vegetable farmers will be the first to say they prefer to have minimal rainfall, and they be the ones to supply the crop’s water needs. But that mindset gets challenged in conditions like what’s being observed across the Southeast.
“With our fruits and vegetables, fortunately, we’re almost 100% irrigated. The dry weather is not necessarily a bad thing. We have less plant disease in dry years than we do in wet years,” Kelly said. “But the same time, it can get difficult with it for an irrigation system to keep up with a fruit crop demand with no supplemental rain.
“If we’re under plastic, it’s a little easier because we don’t lose as much to evaporation. Guys who are just pulling drip tape over bare ground, it’s still difficult for the drip tape to keep up in total absence of rain.”