Tag Archives: Georgia drought

Farmers Dealing with Heat, Drought and Storms

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Watkinsville, GA |

Some of Georgia’s biggest crops like peanuts, cotton and corn are now in the ground. And so far, Mother Nature has been less than kind, with temperatures being well above average despite the highs never reaching triple digits, due mainly to the increased heat at night.

“We’re seeing temperatures not get down that low. So, we’re seeing a lot of this moisture. The moisture causes problems for fungal diseases, causes problems for some crops like corn that need cooler temperatures to do well, causes problems for livestock because livestock are mammals just like us and they need cooler temperatures, really to do well too,” says Pam Knox, Agricultural Climatologist.

However, the biggest concern is the complete absence of rain in some areas of the state as 158 different counties are reporting drought conditions, including 16 of those in severe drought. And while an increase in precipitation is forecasted over the next month, it is likely to be pretty spotty.

“It may not be in the same part of the state every time. One, they’re not going to move very fast because we’re not in really much in the way of jet streams right now, but they’re going to move a little bit. And so, they develop in one place, drop rain there, wet up the soil so that the next day, that can start to produce thunderstorms. Over time, you would hope that it would kind of distribute over the area, but thunderstorm rain is really spotty and even within a county, you could get no rain on one part of the county and several inches on the other part,” says Knox.

This increased heat might also cause problems later in the summer, as the warm ocean waters indicate tropical storms are likely to be in the rise this year.

“The tropics will really start to pick up, probably around mid-August. It’s supposed to be a really busy year. The ocean is hot. There’s not much wind shear because we’re in neutral conditions right now, headed for La Nina. And so, once the storms start popping, we could see a lot of storms coming in, almost like a freight train,” says Knox.

That means farmers will need to be prepared to harvest their crop on a moment’s notice if the situation arises to maximize their yields.

“People that are worried about timing of harvesting are really going to have to watch carefully because you’re going to want to know when those storms are coming in and you’re going to want to be able to prepare for that. So, this year, the real watch word is get ready now. Make sure you got your paperwork in order. Make sure you know what to do. Make sure you got plans for your workers and your families and so on just in case,” says Knox.

The big question is whether these unprecedented conditions are a trend or just an anomaly. While predicting the future is anything but certain, Knox says the former is definitely a possibility.

“I don’t know that there’s been any studies say that there’s a trend towards this in the future, but it’s something we have to keep in mind because the tropics are kind of expanding as the earth gets warmer. That means we’re going to be in in the area of the tropics where the air is descending as it does over the Sahara Desert and the US Southwest and so on. So, we could see more frequent patterns of these high pressures that just dominate the area,” says Knox.

By: Damon Jones

Continued Drought Concerning for Northwest Georgia Livestock Producers

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Villanow, GA |

Here in Walker County, it’s hard to believe that things are better than they were just a couple of weeks ago, as they went almost three whole months with just a fraction of an inch of rain in what’s called an exceptional drought – the worst level there is and was even designated by the USDA as one of the eleven natural disaster counties in the region. It’s something that’s of course been a concern to most everyone, but to cattle producers like Brian Hart, the concern is very much still there.

“This year, our rainfall was perfectly normal until the last week of August and the last week of August it basically quit raining. This area has been in a drought for all of September, all of October, all of November and starting into December. We have had some rains the last part of November and some rains early December and rain forecasted this weekend, which is hopeful, but it’s just been a terribly, terribly dry time for those months and it affected our Fall grazing. We really didn’t know yet how it’s going to affect our hay crop next year,” says Brian Hart, Owner of Red Barn Farm.

As you can tell, most, if not all of the forage is long gone into dormancy, which has forced Brian to start feeding hay early this year.

“We typically graze our fescue pastures up until mid-November, early December with good rain and we don’t put up that much hay, but our hay consumption this year has been extremely high since really about the middle of September because there has been no grass, as you could see from looking in the fields there. It’s just it’s really dried up. We do have some fields we haven’t grazed yet that look decent, but it’s certainly affected our hay consumption. We’ve probably fed an additional hundred rolls of hay already this year that we normally do not feed,” says Hart.

Of course having to start feeding hay earlier than expected has caused his hay stocks to be depleted much faster than normal, which has caused him to have to purchase more hay to make sure they have enough to last them through the Winter.

“We’ve actually purchased some hay just to make sure we have enough. I think we have enough. A lot of it depends on what the grass does when it does start raining, because that’s what nobody knows. If it starts raining normally in December, we don’t know what the grass is going to do behind that rain, so we have bought an additional 150 rolls of hay that we’re going to feed if needed,” says Hart.

One thing that’s concerning to Hart is the long-term effect on his herd, as he relies on Winter grazing to help maintain his cattle’s weight, but without it, he’s afraid they may come up short when it’s time to sell.

“In the calf business like we’re in, we typically wean off 650-700 pound calves every spring along the May or June time frame. We don’t know what those weights are going to be because of the shortage of grass. Now we’ve got plenty of hay to feed them, but they’ll gain a lot better if they had some grass to go with it so that’s another way that it very easily could affect us,” says Hart.

Drought conditions have lessened in the last couple of weeks, but most of the Northwest Georgia area remains in severe drought conditions and it’s unclear when those conditions will ease up.

By: John Holcomb