• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

New England Farmers' Crops Suffer From Heavy Rainfall

Posted on: Tuesday, 13 June 2006, 12:00 CDT

By Chris Fleisher, Eagle Times, Claremont, N.H.

Jun. 10--CLAREMONT -- It had been 10 days and the big pool of water still sat, two feet deep, in the middle of Gary LeClair's cornfield.

He'd just planted the land off River Road when heavy rains swept through the area in May, drenching the seed and washing his fertilizer into the Connecticut River.

LeClair is still waiting for the rain to stop.

"There's not much you can do," he said in an interview on Thursday. "At some point, it will stop raining. But today's and tomorrow's forecast doesn't look like that."

The wet weather that has drenched New Hampshire this spring has caused millions of dollars in destruction to public highways and residences. But for New England farmers, it has affected their livelihood by drowning expensive seed and crops, soaking hay for animals and forcing farms to replant at a time when they should be seeing corn sprout up and early fruits and vegetables ready for harvest.

LeClair, a dairy farmer, said it would be one thing if it were just a single storm or downpour, but the consistent wet days of steely gray skies without sun to dry up the water has strained his pocketbook and relationship with Mother Nature.

"It's like an everyday struggle," he said. "It looked decent yesterday and then I said, 'Wait, no, it's going to rain.' " Rainfall totals in Sullivan County were one and a half times the monthly average for May. According to the National Weather Service, Sullivan County saw 5.34 inches last month, almost two inches more than the average of 3.54 inches.

Making matters worse, temperatures have been slightly cooler than usual for this time of year, allowing all that water to stick around a bit longer.

That has forced farmers like LeClair, who depends on his corn crop and hay to feed his 300 head of cattle, to replant as much as 25 percent of the land. Some are salvaging what they can of the wet hay, packing it into silos to ferment into an anaerobic feed, according to Seth Wilner of the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension in Sullivan County. Unfortunately, farmers won't be able to sell that feed for secondary income, as they do with hay bales, Wilner said.

The real cost, however, has come in the fertilizer that is being washed off the fields. Rising fuel prices have raised the costs of some types of fertilizer by 50 percent in just two years, according to Connecticut River Ag Services in North Walpole.

Urea, a nitrogen fertilizer, rose from $359 per ton to $420 since 2004 and Chilean Nitrate, an organic fertilizer, went from $380 to $570 in the same period of time.

LeClair spent $25,000 on fertilizer last year and expects to pay much more this year.

New Hampshire Agriculture Commissioner Steve Taylor said it is still too early to know the economic impact from the rain, but said he has heard concerns similar to LeClair's from farmers all over the state. Even the logging industry has been hurt because few mills will take the soaked wood, he said.

Taylor said he hopes to get financial help from the United States Department of Agriculture, but said farmers shouldn't expect to get much.

"They'll be able to get some money, I think, but they won't be able to get it right off and the best they'll get is 75 percent (of the losses)," Taylor said.

Other crop farmers, like Paul Harlow in Westminster, Vt., said the cold temperatures have proved to be nearly as much an issue as the damp weather. Usually, he can depend on temperatures in the mid-70s by this time of year to warm the peppers, sweet corn and squash. The average so far for June is 68 degrees, about eight degrees below normal, according to the National Weather Service.

Higher temperatures also help break down the compost and manure that Harlow, an organic farmer, uses to fertilize his fields.

"Some of our crops are very slow growing," he said.

Looking at the weekend forecast on Thursday, LeClair saw little hope. Friday showed a 90 percent chance of rain, with continued precipitation through Saturday and Sunday and temperatures in the low 60s. LeClair said he expected the weather to clear up sooner or later. Sunny and 80 degrees would be nice, he said. He'd even settle for colder weather, if it were dry.

-----

Copyright (c) 2006, Eagle Times, Claremont, N.H.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

Source: Eagle Times, Claremont, New Hampshire

More News in this Category