Farmers work to overcome adversity during this year’s harvest
HENDERSON COUNTY, Tenn. — Farmers try to overcome adversity during this year’s harvest.
With severe weather and rainfall hitting West Tennessee at an alarming rate this year, many farmers in the area have had a difficult harvest in 2023 compared to previous years.
These conditions have posed various obstacles for farmers. Sunset Family Farms owner Brian Muetze tells us one of the issues he has been having this year.
“We’ve had more disease pressure on our specialty crops like our pumpkins and sweet corn, so we’ve had to spend more money putting fungicides on them, and as soon as it rains, it washes them off,” Muetze said.
Another problem that the farm had was the last severe storm that came damaged some of their pumpkins and put them behind their growing schedule. Their last block of sweet corn was also flattened.
“It was taking us about an hour and a half to two hours to pick it up off of the ground and get it up. We also get more animal damage when it’s laying on the ground. Animals do not have to reach as high to get it, so we have a lot more work after the storms,” Muetze said.
Despite this, Muetze remains confident that this year’s harvest will still be a good one and tells farmers just starting out not to give up, as it has been a stressful year.
“Farmers’ mentality next year is always going to be better. I gotta keep hoping on that. We can do everything that we can and throw all the money in the world at something, but mother nature kind of still decides how it’s going to be,” Muetze said.
Make sure to check out Sunset Family Farms Fall Festival starting September 16.
Muetze says that despite the weather’s impact on the crops, this will be a great year for the farm.
Find more news out of Henderson County here.
