BY DORIS CROWLEY
NEWARK, Del. Reeling from
the fourth economically disastrous
year in a row, many Delaware
farmers are wondering how much
longer they can stay in business.
Agricultural officials are still
trying to decide how best to help
producers who were affected by
this summer’s drought—a decision
made difficult by the fact that it
had very uneven effects in
Delaware.
Com yields in the western half of
Kent and New Castle counties and
much of Sussex County have been
drastically reduced, though
nobody will know by exactly how
much until after harvest. Even
loamy land that usually produces
well in dry seasons is so parched
it’s likely to produce half what it
usually does. On sandier soil, some
corn isn’t worth picking. Soybean
losses are harder to estimate,
though that crop also has been
affected. Plants in some very dry
fields are prematurely dropping
their leaves. In Sussex County,
some drought-stressed plantings
also suffered from severe pod
worm infestations.
“It loolcs as though we’re going
to have some pretty substantial
corn yield reductions,” New Castle
County extension agent Dean Belt
told me recently. “This has been
the worst drought I remember in
this county. Along the river, some
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It’s a bleak outlook for Del. farmers
farms look good. But in the rest of
the county land that usually does
well even in dry weather has been
hard hit. Many fields that normally
yield 150 bushels an acre without
irrigation are going to get only
around 50 this year.” One grower
told Belt he counted 45 stalks in a
row without an ear of com. After
that, the man quit counting.
Compounding the effects of the
drought is the fact that much of
Delaware’s com crop was at least
two weeks later than normal going
into the ground last spring, Belt
said. And some farmers who
planted before the ground was
ready wish they hadn’t because the
com didn’t come up well at all. As
a result, stands were extremely
uneven, with wide ranges in height
among plants even in the same
row.
Kent County ag agent Bob
Hochmuth had a similar story to
tell when I spoke with him. “You
can almost split the county in half
this summer,” he said. “In the
northeast-especially along the
Delaware River-the com crop
looks very good and farmers will
probably have minimal losses.
Below the Dover air base and on
the west side of the county, I’d
estimate yields will be down at
least 30 percent.” Fortunately,
soybeans all over his county ap
pear to have done better, thanks to
some timely late August rains,
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though those arrived too late for
most of the com crop.
Hochmuth said vegetables
suffered both because of the late,
wet spring, and the hot weather
which followed. Even with
irrigation, the heat took a heavy
toll-affecting blossom set on lima
beans and pollination of sweet
com. Potato yields were also hurt
down about 30 percent from 1982
because of conditions during tuber
set. Strong prices at harvest
helped to offset potato losses but
other produce crops suffered from
both the weather and depressed
prices.
In Sussex County the picture’s
Lancaster Fanning, Saturday, October 8,1983—A33
much the same, said extension
agent Derby Walker. Spotty rains
benefited some fields but left
others unharvestable. Searing
temperatures affected not only
com pollination, but fruit and pod
set on everything from water
melons and peppers to soybeans.
On top of all this, a severe outbreak
of spider mites damaged many
crops, and many soybean and lima
plantings were seriously hurt by a
late season podworm attack.
Ironically, the spring pea crop
usually counted on as an early cash
crop to help cover costs of main
season crop production-was poor
in some places because to too
much water.
“Overall, the com crop in Sussex
County’s pretty much a disaster
from a yield standpoint,” said
University of Delaware extension
crops specialist Frank Webb.
“With $4 com. the people with 50 to
60 bushel yields should at least
cover out-of-pocket costs.” Walker
agreed, noting that this won’t
cover things like taxes, machinery
wear, labor and other fixed costs.
And of course the best prices in the
world won't help the farmer with
no com to pick.
The agent said farmers with
irrigation were up mght after night
keeping their systems going, to the
point of total exhaustion. With the
heat, the lack of rain, and worry
-'t *- '
~- r >
over crops, many growers were
under considerable physical and
emotional stress, “I think this
drought is worse than the one in
1977 because of the money up
front,” Walker said. “Some guys
are barely hanging in."
As serious as the season’s
weather losses are. observers
agree they’re only a contributing
factor to a far more serious
problem facing Delaware farmers.
"The plight farmers find
themselves in today is really a
four-year-old problem,” Belt said.
“First we had a year of drought (in
1980). Then we had a couple of good
production years with very
depressed prices, and now we've
got another drought.
"No matter what happens to the
crop after it’s in the ground," he
said, “you’re got to put on the
fertilizer, herbicides and plant the
seed. With inflation, farmers have
been forced to borrow money just
to produce. And most of them
even the good managers-aren’t
getting back enough to live on.
They’re living off depreciation and
equity, and that can’t go on.”
University of Delaware ex
tension farm management
specialist Don Tilmon believes that
what’s really got farmers up
against a wall is variable interest
rates. “Over the past eight years
these rates have varied as much as
50 percent within a given year,” he
said. "During this period farmers
have borrowed money to expand
and/or buy new equipment It’s the
interest payments on these loans
that are killing them now ” That,
plus the cycle of poor yields and
poor prices.
Tilmon said it’s hard to
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