Collins, King announce financial assistance
By Scott Mitchell Johnson
Staff Writer
While potatoes obviously need water to grow, the amount of rain that’s fallen in May and June has made it problematic for county farmers. Tim Hobbs, director of development and grower relations for the Maine Potato Board, said the region is about “two inches [of precipitation] ahead of where we normally are this time of year.”
“Normally that amount of rain wouldn’t be a big deal stretched over time, but when you get that type of precipitation day after day after day, it starts to impact growers in that they can’t get into the fields because the fields are too wet,” he said. “In low-lying areas where it ponds water, that will drown out seed, and in some cases it can leech the fertilizer out of the soil. It’s a real aggravation. When you’ve got work to do and you can’t get out because it’s raining it becomes a time management problem.
“However, growers deal with weather all the time,” said Hobbs. “This is nothing new, and while it’s aggravating, it shouldn’t be detrimental.”
Brent Buck, who operates Buck Farms in Mapleton with his brothers, Bruce and Barry, said the significant rainfall has been “challenging.”
“We actually lost 16 consecutive days in the center of our planting cycle that we did not plant; it was either raining or it was too wet [to plant]. Several years back, we had lost nine days,” said Buck. “Those nine days seemed like an eternity, so you can imagine what 16 days feels like. I hope we don’t ever break this new record. The rain has drug out our planting more than twice as long as normal.
“It appears that a lot of the low-lying areas we will lose the crop in those spots because the water has stood there for an extended period of time. It’s still so wet,” Buck said last Thursday, “that it’s created a challenge to get the sprayer in the field and get the herbicide on. We’re seeing some rutting and tearing out some of the rows. It’s been a very hard start to the planting season.”
Buck said a consistent week of warmer weather would be beneficial.
“A week of dry, warm weather would dry up some of the springs, eliminate some of the standing water in the fields, and give us the opportunity to start hoeing,” he said. “However, I’m hesitant to pray that it stops raining because it might, and we might be wishing that we had a little water for the crop down the road. You have to be careful what you wish for because the weather is so unpredictable.”
In a related matter, U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Angus King (I-Maine) announced June 13 that Aroostook County will receive $500,000 in Emergency Conservation Program (ECP) funding for farmers who sustained serious erosion in their fields due to the recent heavy rains.
“We are pleased that the Farm Service Agency will be assisting farmers in Aroostook County who were harmed by the severe rainfall in May and early June,” the senators said in a joint statement. “The potato industry is the backbone of the northern Maine economy, supporting thousands of jobs year round and many more during the harvest season. These funds will help farmers repair the damage to their fields, which could mitigate the effect of these severe storms and help the rebuilding process.”
The ECP, administered by the United States Department of Agriculture, helps farmers and ranchers to repair damage to farmlands caused by natural disasters and to help put in place methods for water conservation during severe drought.
The National Weather Service indicates that — with the exception of a chance of showers and thunderstorms Friday — the remainder of the week looks relatively dry and warm.
