THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 7, 1996 TAG: 9608070336
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LINDA MCNATT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: 98 lines
Chuckatuck farmer Joseph H. Barlow was trying to get a tractor unstuck from a muddy peanut field Monday when he heard a plane overhead.
A neighboring farmer, Barlow learned later, had given up trying to spray his fields with insecticides and fungicides at ground level and had called in a crop duster from the Eastern Shore to do the job.
The neighbor wasn't alone. Pilot Matt Crabbe had enough business to keep him in northern Suffolk and Isle of Wight County for at least two days.
Since Hurricane Bertha briefly touched Hampton Roads in mid-June, the Peanut Belt of Eastern Virginia and North Carolina has gotten from 4 to 9 inches more rainfall than average for this time of year.
In fact, the wet weather has caused headaches across the state, inviting deadly insects and diseases at a crucial time in the growing season and leaving fields saturated.
``The plants are simply drowning,'' said Watson Lawrence, a Chesapeake Extension agent. ``The soils are water-logged, and the crops are having trouble now getting good ventilation.''
The problem is critical on the Eastern Shore. Much of the Shore's potato crop is rotting in the fields, and bacteria are afflicting the lucrative tomato crop. In Southwest Virginia, blue mold - a fungus that deforms stalks and chokes off leaf growth - has destroyed an estimated 75 percent of the burley tobacco crop.
``It's been devastating'' for farmers who can't get their crops out of the field, said Jim Stern, manager of the Eastern Shore Farmers' Market in Melfa. He said the water has damaged cucumbers, peppers, beans, squash, potatoes and tomatoes.
No one is saying yet that the wet weather will mean higher prices at the grocery store, but wholesale buyers from across the United States and Canada are finding vegetable prices up and quantities down, Stern said.
The Shore's Accomack County is the largest tomato- and cucumber-growing county in Virginia, with neighboring Northampton County second in both. In a good year, farmers can ship out more than $47.5 million in tomatoes, $21.2 million in potatoes and $9.1 million in cucumbers.
Jerry Stenger, assistant state climatologist, said normal July rainfall on the Shore is 4.29 inches. Painter, in southern Accomack County, recorded 14.37 inches, the third-highest monthly total in 40 years, and some areas may have had more because of localized thunderstorms.
The overabundance of water in Hampton Roads and the Eastern Shore comes at one of the growing season's most critical times - when insects are beginning to attack maturing plants and when too much moisture on peanuts brings on Sclerotinia blight.
To save peanuts, soybeans and cotton, farmers must spray, said Dr. Patrick Phipps, a Virginia Cooperative Extension plant pathologist at the Tidewater Agriculture and Research Center in Suffolk. The crops need the warm weather and sunshine forecast for the next several days. However, thunderstorms predicted for Friday could bring more rain.
Phipps said Sclerotinia blight, which bleaches out the stems of peanut plants and deposits a webby-looking, gummy substance on the leaves, is apparent in most local fields.
``If the weather we've been experiencing much of this summer continues,'' Phipps said, the blight could be ``devastating.''
It's also the time of year when leaf spot moves into peanut crops, and spraying is necessary for that problem, too.
Western Tidewater produces the bulk of the state's $100 million peanut crop.
In Chesapeake, most of the concern centers on the soybean crop. Plants are beginning to turn yellow from so much rain, Lawrence said. If fields aren't sprayed soon, worms will move in.
There's similar concern for cotton. In Southampton County, Extension Agent Wes Alexander said he found more than 70 cornear moths Monday in one trap.
The same critters crawl out of corn once it's mature, hibernate in the ground for a short time and attack cotton bolls. That's where they lay eggs that hatch into worms, which can keep the bolls from opening.
One bright spot on the area farm front is the corn crop, expected to be a bumper harvest.
The rain also was badly needed by Southside Virginia's flue-cured tobacco, said Virginia Tech Extension specialist David Reed. ``The weather we've had in the last few weeks has made us millions of dollars.''
David Coleman, manager of the Virginia Farm Bureau grain division, said, ``The rains have really helped this crop - corn, especially - but now they could really use some sun.''
Barlow planned to try the tractor again Tuesday and keep trying until the ground dries up enough to let him get into the fields.
``We usually take what we can get and hope for the best in terms of weather,'' Barlow said. ``A little sunshine right now would be nice.'' MEMO: The Associated Press contributed to this story. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by JOHN H. SHEALLY II, The Virginian-Pilot
Crop-dusting planes, like Matt Crabbe's, are one of farmers' only
defenses against insects and fungi encouraged by the recent wet
weather. Fields like this one are just too soggy for tractors.
Spraying for insects - and no more rain - could be enough to save
this rain-soaked field of soybeans in Isle of Wight. But on the
Eastern Shore, the potato and tomato crops are in danger, as is much
of the burley tobacco crop in Southwest Virginia.
KEYWORDS: AGRICULTURE WEATHER by CNB