ELON, N.C. — Vaughn Willoughby shook his head as he scanned the grounds at Pritchett Farms Nurseries, where he had spent the past several decades farming. It was mid-spring, and the pastures before him were the wrong color for this time of year.
“This is probably the driest I’ve ever seen in my life. In April,” Willoughby told MS NOW. “It’s drastic. Very shocking to see how dry, how brown all the pasture is.”
Brown splotches dot the terrain as North Carolina weathers what the U.S. Drought Monitor calls the state’s driest spring on record. That means Willoughby has been unable to plant key crops like hay, some of which he uses to feed cattle. His fields should be covered in grass, several inches high by now, but today it barely pokes through the soil. Each issue exacerbates the next on this farm, threatening an already vulnerable ecosystem…