Dry weather helps some farmers, hinders others

MADISON COUNTY, Tenn. — The dry weather in West Tennessee is affecting farmers this season. For some it’s been a good thing, but for others — not so much.

The dry weather is making it hard for livestock farmers to store hay for the winter.

“We are already starting to feed hay, so we may come into a hay shortage toward the end of the winter months,” Madison County UT Extension Agent Jake Mallard said. “Where we’re going into winter, we’re already starting to feed hay where most of the time we stockpile our pastures and we can feed the cattle on for a little bit longer in the winter months while there isn’t grass growing.”

Even though West Tennessee desperately needs the rain, row crop farmers say it has made for an easy harvest season.

“The dry conditions have helped us get the crops very efficiently this year,” Mallard said. “If you drive around, most of the crops are already harvested — they’re gone.”

For farmers who have already harvested and replanted, they say the lack of rain is making it difficult to start winter wheat for the spring.

“We’ve had about half an inch of rain in the last two months. We need some rain to get that crop up,” Mallard said.

But farmers who still have cotton to pick want the rain to hold off.

“Most of your cotton farmers are going to tell you they want it to hold off until they get the rest of their cotton out, because every time it rains on the cotton the grade goes down slightly. So less rain on the cotton, the better for the cotton,” Mallard said.

As always, the agriculture outcome is up to mother nature. Farmers expect to be done harvesting within the next two weeks.