Drought forces farms to absorb higher fuel costs

NEW JERSEY-Months of drought at southern New Jersey farms have required more intense irrigation that preserved crops but inflated fuel bills in an expensive year for diesel.

A “weather and crop bulletin” from the federal Agriculture Department showed southern New Jersey sites received, from March through August, as little as 70 percent of the average rainfall. The report warned sweet corn, tomatoes, peppers and squash are among the crops affected by the resulting heat stress.

Fruits and vegetables detach prematurely if temperatures are high enough, no matter what a farmer does, but Cumberland County farmer Tom Sheppard said the heat didn’t reach that point this year.

It’s a measure of farmers’ complex relationship with droughts that the weekend soaking from Tropical Storm Hanna wasn’t eagerly anticipated. Flooding can be a greater concern than wilting.

Read full article

Source: Press Of Atlantic City

For more information on water conservation, visit our LEARN section