HENDERSON, Ky. (WEHT) – The lack of rain has much of the Tri-State dealing with drought-like conditions. With Fall harvest well underway across the area, it’s only a matter of time until the farmers feel the impacts. “I drove around and looked at fields,” says Jessica James, an Ag and Natural Resource Agent with the UK Cooperative Extension office in Henderson, “and what I’m seeing is the fields are really, the stages that they’re at, different growing stages, vary pretty greatly.”
James has worked at the Henderson County office for four years and says this has been the most challenging growing season in her young tenure. “We had all that rain in the early Spring time, and so some fields were hard to get into,” says James. “But those that farmers were able to go ahead and get into and get planted, that could take advantage of that Spring time rain that we had, are typically probably going to do better than those that were later planted.”
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Historic flooding during planting time has now given way to worsening drought conditions at harvest. According to the Kentucky Mesonet, the Henderson County gauge has received just over one inch of rain since early August. James says, at this point, a soaking rain will do no good.
“As far as getting a rain now,” explains James, “we’re a little late in the game, because most of the, I mean these fields are pretty mature. So, we’re kind of at the point where it’s not going to make a whole lot of difference. It’s kind of ‘it is what it is’ at this point. So a rain, for most farmers at this point, it might just delay them getting the crops out.”…