To plant or not to plant?

By Alan Mauldin

May 30, 2007 10:56 pm

— THOMASVILLE — As Russell Smith leans his arms across the tailgate of an old pickup truck, a brisk breeze kicks up clouds of dust in the dirt drive at his farm office.
Smith, who has been farming more than half a century, would like to be watering his thirsty tobacco, corn or grass for his cattle, but the wind is hindering those efforts, at least until later in the day.
Smith is working to keep those crops going while hoping to put cotton and peanut seeds in the ground in the next few weeks — if there is any significant rainfall.
Without timely showers, Smith and many other farmers trying to make a living on the land in the driest spring in memory may end up not planting those crops this year.
“We’re trying our best to take care of what we’ve already got planted,” Smith said. “The cows have got to have something to eat. This is the first time we’ve seen something like this, and I’ve been farming a long time.”
Smith remembers severe droughts in the county in 1977 and 1990, but never so severe in the spring that he couldn’t even plant his crops.
Time to make decisions on whether to plant is approaching rapidly. Today is the last day for farmers to plant without suffering a penalty on crop insurance claims made on failed crops.
For the next 15 days, late planters will suffer a 1 percent penalty on crop insurance payments for each day beyond May 31 crops are planted. And those who plant after June 15 will take a 50 percent hit on disaster payments.
Smith said he is not making decisions based on how much crop insurance he stands to collect, but what the weather does.
“If we plant it, we’re going to take care of the crop,” he said.
Those aren’t the only calculations farmers must make in this dry climate, said Don Shurley, a cotton economist with the University of Georgia Extension Service.
“One of the biggest decisions they have to make right now is whether to plant or not,” he said. “The biggest decision would be whether to plant or file with your crop insurance agent because you were prevented due to lack of moisture.”
Farmers who cannot plant due to the drought are eligible to receive 50 percent of the full crop insurance payment that would have been paid had they planted the crop and filed disaster claims, Shurley said.
For those who decide to put a crop in the ground other calculations come into play. The cost of seeds and insecticide to plant cotton is about $60-$70 per acre, Shurley said, a risky proposition on the 40 percent of cotton acreage that is not irrigated.
Even cotton growers on irrigated land have to consider the added cost of high fuel prices, he said.
“Making that decision is made tougher because of the high fuel prices, because once you make a decision to plant, the farmer has to continue to make good management practices” including chemical applications, Shurley said. “Once you plant, you’re committed.”
Dryland corn in the county is already a disaster, with many farmers exploring chopping down the crop in order to have something to feed cattle, said county extension agent Don Clark. The corn would have to be tested for nitrates before it could be fed to cows.
Growers also would have to cut the corn high up the stalks because nitrates concentrate toward the bottom of the plant, thus losing some of the volume, he said.
“We’ve got some farmers considering coming in with a silage chopper,” Clark said as he examined a stunted corn plant. “There’s not much here, but they don’t have enough to feed their cattle. We’re at a point where we’re looking at something to feed cattle.”
Clark is recommending feeding 25 pounds of corn per day per head of cattle.
“That’s not going to fill them up, but it will sustain them,” he said. “That’s all we’re trying to do is sustain them until we get some rain.”
Clark said the potential losses to farmers due to the drought can easily top $50 million unless there is sufficient rainfall in the next few weeks.
“If farmers are not able to get in peanuts, cotton and corn crops, Thomas County farmers are going to lose $60 million in gross farm income,” he said. “And that’s a conservative estimate.”

Reporter Alan Mauldin can be reached by calling (229) 226-2400, ext. 226.