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SUN, DRY FORECAST PROMPT HARVEST HOPES, EVEN FOR SUBMERGED CROPS

By Mary Hightower /Special to The Commercial
Tuesday, November 3, 2009 11:52 PM CST

Arkansas farmers were trying to make the most of a rarity: Consecutive days of sunshine. However, some growers may have to wait before firing up the harvesters.

“It was still too wet for anyone to harvest this weekend,” Jeremy Ross, extension soybean agronomist for the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture, said Monday. “I talked with one grower this morning and he said it might be Wednesday before the ground is firm enough to harvest.

“Some fields are completely under water and we will have to wait for the water to come down,” Ross said. Some areas of Poinsett County “have received 78 inches of rainfall since April 27.”

Growers with rice and cotton in the fields may have a slight advantage.

“With rice and cotton, a little sun and wind will dry it out,” said Don Plunkett, Jefferson County extension staff chair with the U of A Division of Agriculture.

Tom Barber, extension cotton agronomist with the division, was working an extension plot in Woodruff County, just north of Brinkley, Monday.

“We’re picking cotton today,” he said. “A few guys are running on the sandier fields, but elsewhere, it’ll take today to dry out. It’s not going to hurt to wait another day.”

Barber said that with 10 days of dry weather in the forecast, the growers will get a lot done.

Plunkett estimated about 25 percent of Jefferson County’s 24,000 acres of corn had yet to be harvested.

“That’s a tremendous amount,” Plunkett said. “In any other year, we would be through harvesting in September.”

The wind and rain caused some of the corn to lodge, but the ears were not on the ground, he said, adding that about 60 percent of the county’s 133,000 acres of soybeans were also awaiting harvest.

Winter wheat planting was at a standstill, with no planting progress made, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

Southeast Arkansas

The rain-shocked 2009 growing season may prove to be devastating for Chicot County, where more than 65 percent of the county is farmland.

On Monday and Tuesday, Gus Wilson, Chicot County Extension Staff chairman, made the rounds, visiting farmers and getting a first-hand look at what record rain has left of crops in the state’s southeasternmost county.

He said Tuesday that he believed Chicot and neighboring Ashley and Desha counties were the hardest hit by the 2009 rain.

Earlier this season, the harvest outlook was promising.

“Seven or eight weeks ago, we were looking at 1,100 to 1,200 pound cotton” lint yield per acre, Wilson said. “Now we’re 500 to 600 pounds.”

The soybeans are just as bad. Back in September, “we had a good soybean crop. The yield was there,” he said. “We have lost at least 60 percent to 80 percent due to the weather.”

“Our rice is going to be half,” Wilson said.

Wes Kirkpatrick, Desha County staff chair, said “I have heard instances where producers had fields that traditionally yielded 1,200 to 1,400 pounds per acre are yielding 700-800 pounds per acre this year.”

Soybean quality is also an issue, and the quality issues vary widely from field to field, he said. “Some fields have no damage and other fields have nearly 100 percent damage.”

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