With the amount of rain seen in Kinston and other areas of Eastern North Carolina over the summer, the area has looked a little more like springtime in Seattle.
Many summer staples such as cookouts, baseball games and pool parties have been postponed or cancelled due to precipitation. Record amounts of rain have come in strings of days, with moments of sunshine sometimes coming far and in between.
Over the past 30 years, the city of Kinston averaged 10.64 inches of rain in the months of June and July, according to information provided by the National Weather Service. However, Greene County farmer Donnie Blizzard said some areas in the region have received more than twice as much.
“This is one for the books,” Blizzard said. “In my 38 years of farming, I do not recall having this amount of rainfall in … June and July. June is a very critical month for crops, and in my area we’ve had about 19.5 inches this summer. We’ve been a little more fortunate since other friends of mine have had about 23 inches of rain.
“I have an uncle in Lenoir County who reported 21 inches in June and July.”
There doesn’t seem to be a reprieve as July comes to a conclusion. Accuweather.com predicts at least a 25 percent chance of rain during five of the final six days of the month.
The past two months have been especially difficult for farmers who haven’t been able to maintain their crops because of the additional rainfall.
“Typically, in Eastern North Carolina, we’ll get rain and in June it will stop raining,” Jones County Field Crops Agent Jacob Morgan said. “We’ll usually have drought because of how dry and hot it gets and the sandy soil. This year, it started raining and didn’t really stop. It wasn’t the amount of rain but the consistency and fields that held water well had problems with flooding.”
One Lenoir County farmer — who asked not to be identified for this report — said he was about a month behind with his work because of the amount of rain. He also said he’ll usually see the amount of rain over a six-month period over just June and July.
Greene County Assistant Extension Agent Roy Thagard has seen quite a few important crops damaged because of the high volume of rain.
“Our tobacco has suffered because for maybe 11 straight days farmers weren’t able to maintain the leaves in a timely fashion, which affected management,” Thagard said. “The plants were also hit hard by target spots, which affected about 20 percent of yield potential. The roots got too much water.”
Thagard also mentioned the cotton crop may not recover this year because of the water stress. Wheat and soybeans also took a very significant hit.
“We still have about 2,500 acres of wheat in the fields,” Thagard said. “Many farmers expected good returns, but some grain elevators can’t purchase the wheat because of the damage. The rain really hurt as far as timing of harvest and quality of feed.
“The early soybeans weren’t really affected, but those planted later received too much moisture and didn’t germinate. Right now, there are some farmers just getting into the fields with herbicide and fungicide.”
Morgan also said the delay was the reason for so many fields still having wheat.
“Usually, farmers have the wheat harvested and the soybeans planted by the end of June,” Morgan said. “By July 1, a lot of fields hadn’t been picked. As a result, people made decisions to plant really late and not have time for them to mature, or not plant and forgo opportunity to make a profit.”
With every stormy cloud though, a silver lining can be found. Blizzard has seen one particular plant do well because of the additional rain.
“The only crop that has really flourished is corn,” Blizzard said. “This will actually be one of the better corn crops Eastern North Carolina has seen.”
Junious Smith III can be reached at 252-559-1077 and Junious.Smith@Kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JuniousSmithIII.