Good crops despite dry conditions

Each day, Charlie Gilbreath looks down his rows of corn and soybeans, then looks to the skies for rain and divine intervention.

"I prayed to God that I'd get just one more good year," said Gilbreath, who grows soybeans, corn and hay on his farm in southern Walker County, Ga.

So far, the prayers have been answered. Gilbreath's crops are healthy, and he expects he will have a solid corn and soybean harvest toward the end of this month.

Across Georgia, despite recent dry conditions and scorching heat, most farmers are anticipating decent harvests, according to the Georgia Department of Agriculture.

PDF: Georgia crop analysis

Statewide, for the first week in August, 63 percent of crops are listed as either good or excellent. Another 31 percent are listed as fair, and only 7 percent were listed as poor or very poor.

The good conditions are mostly because of heavy rains in late spring and early summer. Conditions are dry now, but most crops already were well established by the time things dried out.

That doesn't mean there's no anxiety. Gilbreath says he still needs sporadic rain - maybe 2 to 3 inches of rain - to get a good harvest at the end of this month. And though he's gotten good rains, some other farmers even in his own county haven't been so lucky.

"We're at a critical stage," said Walker County Extension Service Agent Norman Edwards. "Right now, corn and soybeans - if they've survived so far - are producing the actual crop."

Those crops will need some water and certainly they can't endure very dry conditions, he said.

Luckily, while there hasn't been much rain, we aren't suffering from a "dry heat," WRCB-TV meteorologist Paul Barys said.

"We have extreme heat and extreme humidity, but that humidity is preventing a lot of evaporation," Barys said. "Earlier in the summer, the dewpoint was way down, and we had a dry heat that made the ground very dry."

The sort of weather that makes outdoor activity unbearable for most folks is usually pretty good for crops, he said, so hot and humid temperatures with occasional rains are ideal.

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