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Corn Planted; Now Prayer is for Rain

Posted on: Wednesday, 19 April 2006, 18:00 CDT

By Gene Zaleski, The Times and Democrat, Orangeburg, S.C.

Apr. 17--Much of The T&D Region's corn crop for this year is in the ground.

Now farmers and county Clemson Extension agents are just hoping there is adequate moisture in the coming weeks to help the crop flourish.

"We need some rain this month," said Dan Garrick, who operates Dan Garrick Farms Inc. off Slab Landing Road. "It really does not take much moisture to get it going, but after that we need continual rainfall."

Garrick planted about 350 acres of corn at his farm over the past few weeks without much difficulty as soil moisture was adequate.

"We planted all no-till," he said. "I had to irrigate some of it to get it to come out because I was afraid some would not come up. But it looks good. It is all up and growing good."

Cope farmer Ronnie Gray said the high cost of nitrogen fertilizer -- which has increased about 50 percent in the past few years -- kept his corn plantings down this year to about 70 acres.

About 90 percent of the cost of nitrogen is associated with the cost of natural gas, which is the key component in nitrogen manufacturing.

Despite cutting back on corn planting, Gray said dry days in March helped corn planting, but since then the days have continued to remain relatively dry. About half of Gray's field is under irrigation.

"It (the corn) has an excellent stand, but these cool nights are keeping it from growing a little bit," Gray said.

Calhoun County Clemson Extension agent Charles Davis echoed Garrick in the success of planting and praised the recent rains.

"The half-inch of rain we got this past week was a Godsend," Davis said.

"It helped get us on the way to getting a good crop out of the ground.

That is the first step."

Davis said early estimates have about 4,000 acres of corn planted in Calhoun County, with most of the corn planted within the past three weeks.

He did note, however, the success of the crop will rely on the amount of moisture received in the coming few weeks.

"We are always concerned about it if we don't get rain," Davis said. "We are fixing to go into cotton planting full speed here in a couple of weeks. The lack of rainfall between now and then won't be a good thing at all."

And by the looks of the latest climate prediction from the National Oceanic & Atmosphere Administration Climate Prediction Center, rainfall might be hard to find.

NOAA is predicting precipitation for the coming month to be below normal here and temperatures slightly above normal.

The weather pattern is being blamed on weak La Nina (the periodic cooling of ocean waters in the east-central equatorial Pacific that affects the typical alignment of weather patterns.)

During a typical La Nina (which means infant girl in Spanish), the South is often plagued by drought.

A La Nina weather pattern occurs about every three to five years. The last one was in 2000-2001, but weather experts say it was relatively weak.

During the last La Nina, Orangeburg County did suffer through severe drought conditions, damaging crops and lowering lakes to dangerous levels.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Times and Democrat, Orangeburg, S.C.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Times and Democrat, Orangeburg, South Carolina

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