Forecast prompts harvest hopes
Nov 3, 2009 1:01 PM, By Mary Hightower, University of Arkansas
Growers with rice and cotton in the fields may have a slight advantage. A little sun and wind will dry them out.
Arkansas farmers on Monday 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 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, Ark., on Monday afternoon.
“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.
Conditions weren’t so great in southeastern Arkansas, he said, but added there were bad spots all around.
“The guys around the rivers and tributaries of the White, St. Francis and Cache are still underwater and are waiting for some draining and drying,” he said.
