By Clint Thompson
South Georgia’s dry weather conditions are not a bad thing for the region’s watermelon production. In fact, it is what specialty crop producers prefer. They want to be the ones applying the water, says Ty Torrance, University of Georgia Cooperative Extension vegetable agent for Colquitt, Tift and Worth counties.
“As far as vegetables go for sure, we’d much rather be able to control our water ourselves. The only time it really would impact us is in the land prep phase of everything. But everything should be in the ground by now,” Torrance said.
“When you get into the season, rain, for the most part, just helps introduce environments to disease and stuff like. We’d much rather be able to control our own water.”
Like other fruit and vegetable crops, watermelon plants are susceptible to disease pressure if there is adequate moisture. Disease chances will diminish significantly if the current dry period extends into the season.
Georgia growers are already seeing the impact in the Suwanee Valley region of North Florida.
“I’ve heard just from conversations that North Florida is really clean right now as far as disease pressure goes. Georgia is, too, but it is really early. It’s always good to start clean and stay clean as long as we can throughout the season before we get a fruit load on the plant, and it starts to drag down a little bit,” Torrance said. “Everything’s moving pretty good right now.”