Although the National Weather Service in Birmingham is predicting an end to the drought that has plagued the Southeast in recent years, it may be too late for some area farmers.“We should have some good rain coming this weekend that will help with the short-term problems, especially the brush fires we’ve been seeing lately,” according to meteorologist Scott Unger of the National Weather Service. “Right now, it’s looking like rainfall for the next few months shouldn’t be too far above or below average. We just had that really dry stretch in March, where you had that persistent high pressure just parked over the Southeast. Since Jan. 1, rainfall in greater Birmingham is 10 and half inches below where it needs to be, but I think we’ll get caught up over the next few months,” Unger said.
For fruit growers, the freeze Easter weekend was as devastating as the drought, according to St. Clair County Extension Agent Kent Stanford.
“The cold snap killed all of the fruit from Birmingham northward, except maybe some of the strawberries,” Stanford said. “Corn stalks that were less than six inches tall during the freeze will be alright, but some of the bigger stalks will be damaged, and so will the winter wheat. Although in our area, we don’t have a lot of people growing row crops.”
The real damage in St. Clair County will be to the forage crops, Stanford continued.
“The Bermuda grass got hit really hard, and it will take it a while to recover,” he said. “And we’re still in a rainfall deficit, which certainly doesn’t help. But it was so warm before that, people put it out earlier than usual.”
The drought has damaged the other forage crops, especially fescue and rye grass. “They got burned substantially, but they’ll also recover faster than the Bermuda grass if they get enough rain. They could have bounced back from the cold pretty quickly, but it’ll be harder with the dry weather, which has affected them much more severely.”
Stanford added that while the area was 10 to 12 inches behind in rainfall for this year, the deficit for the last three years was closer to 40 inches.
“We’re still in a drought here, and it’s not localized. It’s all over the Southeast, and all over Alabama,” he said.
Bill Jones, manager of the Talladega County Cooperative Exchange, said the county’s wheat crop would be in particular jeopardy.
“We should be alright if we get the rain this weekend, but beyond that, we’ll have to see. But the cold snap plus the dry weather is really going to hit wheat the hardest.”
The drought will also impact those raising livestock.
“Hay prices were already out of sight four months ago, and now all the supplies are deleted. I don’t think you could find a square bale of hay south of Canada. But if we get some more rain, on top of what we got when the tornado came through, that might help refurbish the pastures, and you could pull the cows out of the hay fields and let them graze. People have been fertilizing a lot too, hoping that will happen. And the horse people are going to alfalfa, so nobody’s starving, but if people can’t get enough hay for their cattle, they will sell them.”
Fortunately, large numbers of cattle going on sale in Alabama is unlikely to have much influence on the national price.
“We’re really just a drop in the bucket now,” he said. “Most of the cattle are out west, in the Corn Belt, so we don’t really have much influence on price here. It might add up for the Southeast as a whole, but other states have a lot more irrigation than we do in Alabama,” according to Jones.
That seems to be changing, at least in Talladega County. “We’re starting to see more farmers investing in irrigation systems here, and if you’re growing row crops or vegetables, it’s the best money a farmer can spend. Although for hay, it’s not really feasible.”
