It's been very wet on the farm for the past month or so and while we initially welcomed the rain as we came out of a particularly nasty drought we're now at a place where the rain may have some serious impacts on our farm this season. Here are the top 3 things we're concerned about:
- Weeds: Our weeding tools require dry conditions in the field to be effective and while we're still in good shape with respect to weeds we know it doesn't take long for them to get out of control.
- Disease: Most of the pathogens that could affect our plants thrive in wet conditions. That's about the only condition we've had for the past month and while we don't see much disease yet we're concerned that when the humidity cranks up that we may start to lose crops due to disease.
- Crop Loss/Stunted Growth: Our crops need both air and water to thrive. If our crops roots are submerged in water for too long or if the soil is so saturated with water that there's little to no air we could see crop losses. We've already observed some stunted and slow growth on crops as well as stress reactions from our crops.
The good news is that the majority of our crops are planted on higher ground and are not under water at the moment and considering all the rain we've had look pretty good. We also have multiple successions of crops so that we can plant more when it dries out. Additionally, our tunnels help reduce the impact of the rain even though it's rained so much and so hard the water has washed under the tunnels multiple times this season.
We're really hoping the rainy season is over soon. If the rain abates as it tends to do in July & August we will be in good shape. If we continue to get more than double our average monthly rainfall we could be in a trouble. Time will tell.
Farming is a tough business. You can make all the right decisions and mother nature will do what she's going to do.
