Virginia Farmers: Rain, Rain Go Away
Farmers in some parts of Virginia experienced one of the rainiest months of May on record, and they’re finding it difficult to keep their spirits afloat when so much field work has to be put on hold.
“The wet weather has really slowed down all farm work,” said Ellis Walton, a Middlesex County farmer and member of the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation board of directors. “You can’t care for small grains and can’t get started on corn and bean planting because it’s been too wet to put equipment in the fields. No hay has been cut for weeks. I still have a half-inch of standing water in my own yard.”
In some parts of the state the steady rain has compensated for an earlier, dry spring. However, all across Virginia, including the Middleburg area, rainfall accumulations are two inches above normal, according to the National Weather Service. As a result corn, peanuts, soybeans and tobacco are all being planted later than usual.
“We were ahead of the pace as of the first of April, but after all this rain now everything’s behind,” said David Hickman, an Accomack County potato grower and VFBF board member. “Now we’ve got slugs eating the corn. They’re thriving under the crop residue out in the fields, eating all the seed.
Farmers need at least a couple of days of clear weather to cut and dry hay, and that has been hard to come by. Consequently, at least half of the hay crop is rated below average, according to the May 22 Crop Weather Survey conducted by the Virginia office of the National Agricultural Statistics Service.
In other Virginia farming developments, Virginia wheat growers’ crops will be highlighted during a mid-Atlantic tour on June 10. Industry stakeholders have conducted wheat quality tours in the Midwest for decades, but mid-Atlantic soft wheat tours are still in their infancy.
“Some people are surprised at how much soft wheat is grown in Virginia,” said tour organizer Andrew Clements, a merchandiser with Gavilon Grain LLC in Kansas City. “This tour may help shed light on Virginia’s wheat industry and help expand production.”
On June 10, agronomists, granary operators, merchandisers, millers and traders will gather on the Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula and in Culpeper County to tour Virginia wheat farms. Virginia Cooperative Extension agents will lead the tours.
Participants will examine wheat fields, check for signs of disease, take sample test weights and estimate yields. Traders and mill representatives will use that data to determine the available wheat supply and its quality.
Wheat will be ready to harvest at the time of the tour, and as Robert Harper, the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation grain manager explains, “this will give us more information about the harvest and take some of the guesswork out of it.”
Harper said flour mills check wheat for quality factors like mold and test weight. With all the recent wet weather and cloudy conditions, it’s likely that crop quality will not be as prime as farmers hoped.
The mid-Atlantic soft wheat tour started about five years ago in Pennsylvania, when a wheat trader took a local grain elevator representative and a local crop broker to several wheat farms. Since then, the tour has grown to 32 industry leaders and covers Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware. This year the tour has added another group in Pennsylvania and expanded to New Jersey and Virginia, Clements said.
Weather also has been a factor in the bee business. While the number of Virginia honey bee colonies declined between the winter of 2015 and the winter of 2016, a relatively warm winter may have helped more bees survive this year.
According to a survey released last month by the National Agricultural Statistics Service, there were 8,000 bee colonies in Virginia on Jan. 1, 2015 owned by professional and amateur beekeepers with more than five hives. As of Jan. 1, 2016, there were 6,500 hives. But 28 percent of the state’s bee colonies were lost over the winter of 2015, compared to only 17 percent this past winter.
Virginia beekeepers had to import 800 colonies and renovate 460 more in 2015. Renovating a colony involves either providing a new queen to a hive or providing new worker bees. Those numbers dropped to 500 new colonies and 130 renovated colonies in 2016.
Colony collapse disorder has been a new challenge to beekeepers in recent years. However, Tignor said the real problems in Virginia are insect pests and several other diseases. Sometimes, he said, those factors can lead to a hive being abandoned, as is common in colony collapse disorder.
Honey bees are essential pollinators for about one-third of Virginia’s fruit and vegetable crops, so any significant losses are important to farmers and consumers alike. Beehive losses are typically highest in the winter, when food supplies are scarce, Tignor said.
Interest in renewing the supply of bees is so strong in Virginia that the General Assembly established a grant program in 2012 to help new beekeepers start operations. The next round of funding, about $125,000, is due to be dispersed after the new fiscal year starts July 1.