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Two weeks.
If rainless days that have been the norm in East Tennessee continue, that is how the long corn crop has until it’s too late to recover even a little, said Loudon County farmer David Richesin Monday. After that — after the critical pollination period — many corn crops, including his 1,000 acres, will likely be a “total loss.”
Richesin was host to a visit from U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, who was in Loudon County Monday to see firsthand the effects of the state’s worst drought in more than a century. And that is after a devastating late-spring freeze that destroyed crops all over Tennessee.
“What I know is this: We’ve had a double whammy,” Alexander said. “So far as I can tell, we’ve never had anything quite like this.
“First we have an Easter freeze and then we have what the experts tell me is the worst drought we’ve had — the last five months was the worst drought we’ve had in 118 years.”
According to information from the National Drought Mitigation Center’s Drought Monitor in Nebraska, almost 40 percent of the state is experiencing an extreme drought, with 5 percent in the worst level measured by the group. There is not a single county in Tennessee that is not experiencing drought conditions, with rainfall totals ranging from 8 to 14 inches below normal.
“The whole state is affected, but the worst part’s right through southeast Tennessee,” Alexander said to a group of 40 farmers gathered at Richesin’s Loudon County home. “Right where we are.”
Even without the added devastation caused by the spring freeze — for which the state’s 95 counties have been approved to receive federal farm aid — the drought is more severe than anything most anyone alive today has seen in Tennessee, said Tennessee Farm Bureau Federation President Lacy Upchurch.
“I’ve told lots of people, you know, we’ve had droughts in certain areas in the state for a number of years, but I can’t remember in my lifetime every having this kind of drought all across the state of Tennessee affection so many people and so many communities,” he said.
Even if the rain started falling today, Richesin didn’t have high hopes for this year’s crops. Soy bean plantings are running six weeks late because the ground is too dry to support them, and corn is dying all over the area. And that affects dairy and beef farmers who raise crops to feed their animals, as well as the numerous businesses and communities that rely on money spent by farmers on farming.
“At this point here, I wouldn’t even expect a 50 percent yield,” Richesin said, looking over acres of his corn that are about 5 feet shorter than they should be this time of year. “It’s probably already lost totally.
“At this location ... really, I think this corn here is a total loss today, even if it started raining tomorrow,” he added. “It’s just too old —it should be fixing to tassel, and instead it’s just withering and dying in the soil.”
Alexander vowed to do everything he could in Congress to get help to the farmers, even though he wasn’t sure exactly what that may be.
“Whatever we can do, we’ll do,” he said. “I’m not here to make a lot of promises ... but I think it’s important for me to be able to go back to Washington and say with conviction ... what the real conditions are of the people of Tennessee.”