In the News - November 2009
Record rain in Arkansas dings fruit, hay, timber
UNDATED - Arkansas' row crops weren't the only ones to suffer from record
rainfall. Fruit, hay and timber also were hurt.
On Wednesday, the governors' office announced that USDA made six more
Arkansas counties eligible for assistance due to the heavy rain: Johnson, Logan,
Newton, Ouachita, Scott and Searcy. Five of the counties are in northwest or
north-central Arkansas. Ouachita County in southern Arkansas had its wettest
October ever. At Camden, 22.39 inches of rain fell, beating the record of 17.98
inches set in 1984.
Saturated ground was making life difficult in Arkansas' timber industry, said Caroll Guffey, an extension natural resources program associate for the U of A
Division of Agriculture. Timber was valued at more than $442 million in 2008.
"It's definitely a problem for the loggers," he said Thursday. "Even if there
were some areas dry enough to log, the road system to get in or out may be under
water."
Guffey said he heard bad news from mill owners during a meeting on Wednesday
in Glenwood in western Arkansas.
"They all had less than a half day's logs in the yard," he said. "They've
been running like that for the last month.
"Some are shutting down, or closing shifts or running one day a week," Guffey said.
Ironically, "this is the time of year when most mills try to fill as
much storage space as
they can," he said. "November usually starts the wet season, which runs until
late May or June. Unless it's abnormally dry, it'll be hard for mills to keep
enough logs to run full time."
This spells bad economic news for some timber-dependent regions.
"Loggers are paid on the basis of what they get in," Guffey said. "It's a
vicious cycle. They can't bring trees in and they don't get paid.
"The mills don't have anything to cut and they have to scale back or shut
down," he said.
The trees themselves are unharmed. "Those species are adapted to withstand
the water, especially at this time of year," he said.
The National Weather Service was continuing its flood warning for Ouachita
County. The Ouachita River was receding on Thursday and was expected to fall to
32.7 feet by Friday morning, still well above the 26-foot flood stage.
In Searcy County, the rain made hay cutting difficult, said Brad Runsick,
county extension agent for the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture.
"Up here, the producers just can't get that last cutting of hay," he said. "We've had three good days of sunshine now. If they're
going to do it, they are going to do it now."
Unlike the row crop producers who are losing money because water has rendered
crops unsellable, or damaged it enough to slash the value, many of the hay
producers "are more likely to use what they make," Runsick said, adding that any
hay sold this year would've been from earlier, higher quality cuttings.
The Division of Agriculture's Fruit Research Station in Clarksville received
nearly 12 inches of rain in October alone.
"That's about a quarter of a year's worth of rain," said Dan Chapman, the
station's resident director. "Nothing was a total disaster, but production was
down in blackberries, peaches and grapes."
Excess water can be almost as damaging as drought, and in some cases, the
symptoms are the same.
"When it's flooded, the plants can't take the nutrients up," Chapman said. "When it's too dry, there's
not enough fluid to let the plants take up nutrients either."
Wet ground interfered with the plans of at least one local peach grower "who
has been trying to plant a new block, but there hasn't been a chance to work the
ground," Chapman said.
The rain delayed grape harvest up to three weeks, said Joseph Post, marketing
director for Post Familie winery in Altus.
"Thin-skinned varieties like Vidal, Seyval, Chardonnay and Zinfandel suffered
bunch rot damage, while the thicker skinned varieties did well," he said,
referring to the Ives, Niagara, Steuben, Noble and Carlos grapes.
On the other hand, "there was no need to irrigate our vineyards this year and Muscadines continue to please us with their seemingly endless productivity year
in and year out," Post said. "We were still harvesting Muscadines in the last
week of October."
The Cooperative Extension Service is a part of the University of Arkansas
Division of Agriculture and offers its programs to all eligible persons
regardless of race, color, national origin, religion, gender, age, disability,
marital or veteran status, or any other legally protected status, and is an
Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.
November 6, 2009
By Mary Hightower
U of A Division of Agriculture
Media Contact: Elizabeth Fortune
Extension Communications Specialist
U of A Division of Agriculture
Cooperative Extension Service
(501) 671-2120
efortune@uaex.edu
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