Farmers Struggling At Harvest Time

Grand Bay Rain Rain is delaying harvest season and killing some crops.

by Chad Petri

Published: Fri, October 16, 2009 - 6:22 pm CST Last Updated: Fri, October 16, 2009 - 6:24 pm CST

GRAND BAY, Alabama - Today was the first sunny day for Mobile County farmers in awhile on 10/16/09. Farmers like Bert Driskell can only hope it holds out.

“there's a lot of crop that's been lost and there's a lot more that's gonna be lost if the weather doesn't straighten out,” says Bert Driskell of Driskell Cotton Farms. Farmers haven't been able to harvest because of too much rain. He says he's lost about a quarter of his cotton crop already, plus the other crops he could lose adds up to a lot of money.

“Several hundred thousand dollars, gonna make that tough seasons for us,” says Driskell. Rain is good for crops and keeping the farm maintained but it's almost been the right amount of rain at the wrong time.

“We had dry weather when we needed to plant which made the crops skippy and late planting for some now we're getting it when we don't really need it, it's been an unusual year,” says farmer and President of the Mobile County Farmer’s Federation Calvin Freeland. He says a third of his soybean crop has withered on the vine and he's had to watch hard work go to waste.

“And the high temperature and the high humidity is actually uh rotted the soybeans on the stalk before we can harvest them,” says Freeland. The endangered harvests of southwest Alabama could affect prices at the grocery store--but most farmers say the increase would be slight. The growers have to struggle through another tough year.

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