Drought

How's it treating everybody's summer plots?

It was too wet to get in ours a couple days ago. It maybe fine now, though.

Badly.

This is like on "Dumb and Dumber" when Harry's hands are freezing and Lloyd offers him his extra pair because his hands are sweating

Summer plots? What summer plots? Its so dry here that after a 20 minute downpour the other day, it was dusty the next day. I had a guy digging down on a mini-excavator to try and find some clay for a small watering hole. He dug down about 3', found clay, but it was dry as a bone. Yucchi clover is the only thing trying to hold on. I may start planting small burnette and chicory, as both are drought hardy. Small burnette is the most hardy plant i've ever seen.

Stressing the clover bad but it's hanging on with the afternoon storm once a week.

I haven't seen it this bad in years. I am glad I didn't have a place to plant any this year. Some of the traditional place I help with have had complete failures due to lack of rain. Even the guys I know doing throw and mow had failures. Bad times...

Well I have lucked out so far, not a lot of rain but always just enough when needed. My buddy sent me a plot update last nite, excuse his ugly mug, and it looks like the corn is nearing 6.5-7 feet.

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Our clover is wiped out except in the shadiest areas. Beans and corn, too early to tell. Sunn Bemp has been in the ground 5 weeks and should be over 3 feet tall, it was anywhere from 2-7 inches tall two weekend ago.

Older guy at church "86" said the spring he uses to water his cows has slowed to a drip and it was the first time he can remember that ever happening.

Got several good rains in Walker County in certain parts corn and beans are doing well around the house .

No drought on the coast

I sense sarcasm

Anyone ever told you what happens to folks who mess with snakes?

Hey, I was being serious. That method is thought to reduce soil moisture lost.

I still like busting dirt though.

It does without a doubt help improve moisture infiltration and retention. What it can’t do is make it rain though. Every field depending on soil type eventually has a breaking point.

Creeks are still running a little high down here in BC due to all the rain. That last set of storms we got filled my rain barrels up. Wish we could send y'all some rain. Right now is when the mast crops need it the most. Gonna try to get out and check our acorn crop this weekend.

Too much rain in some areas of Lower Al and NE Al in a drought, welcome to Summer 2016. Can't remember if it's El or La Nina that's causing this crazy weather ?

Summer of 2007 was really bad, and I didn't think we were close to that dry yet. You guys in NE AL think it's that dry? I'm thinking we just have short memories.

We had some pines planted in 07 that had 80-90% failure. I haven't heard of that this year anywhere in the state.

Yes. NE bama is that bad. Fires will be happening with the 4th approaching.

A graphic of what you probably already know ...

http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Home/RegionalDroughtMonitor.aspx?southeast

Should be good for the poults at least

The dozer work i was having done, is now completed. It looks like the surface of the moon. 6" of moon dust. A cloud of dust comes up with every step. Walking on my thatch in my plots, sounds like i'm walking on glass. Its pitifully dry here.

We've had Osanippa Creek dry up twice since 2005. It ain't no small creek. Guess I better go check it out. (It would be a river in Texas.)

I hope it isn't as bad as drought of 1980 , '07 was minor league compared to '80. We still have 3, hot, dry months to go too.

This tells the story for the Winfield area...

Hell they would call osanippa creek a river here in Baldwin county. Ha

It is really, really dry here. I don't think we are quite to 2007 status yet, but very well could be in another week. We have been feeding hay for 2 weeks and our first cutting is the only cutting we will get until it starts raining. Fescue yards and pastures are done, bermuda pastures and hay fields are still greenish but have not grown 2 inches in the past month. Corn is waist deep in most fields and starting to tassel. Soybeans that were planted 4-6 weeks ago are about 4" tall. I saw one soybean field plowed under the other day.

The problem with 2007, is that was only one year of the 3 year drought we had here in Marshall county. It was also not the worst year of the 3 for us. I can't remember if it was 06, 07 and 08 or 07, 08 and 09, but they were all bad.

One of those years we got 26" of rain, all year. It literally rained everywere except Marshall and south Dekalb county.

For it to be so dry here, I can drive south to the county line to Snead on Hwy 75 and see corn in fields that's 7-8 feet tall and beautiful. Something about this mountain detours rain. Most of what has fallen has split and gone around us. I have watched it rain just at the bluff no telling how many times.

To answer Nighthunters question, my alfalfa is okay but it's not growing much.

Oh yeah, it's every bit that bad. Better be glad you aren't planting any pines in Ragland this year, they'd be toast. Like every other plant out there.

I bushhoged my fall planting down over my spring seed in the middle of May. It's got a couple brief showers on it. Little germination, and even the grass is only about 2" tall over a month later.

Bad in Jackson Co and up on Sand Mtn. Last year we made 112 5x6 rolls of hay in our main hay field this year 82; our other patch which is not our best hay made a 138 last year and 43 this year. There won't be a second cutting and I need 225 rolls for my cows. Was saving about 60 acres of pasture thinking I would cut it for hay, but if we don't get rain by the first of next week going to have to turn the cows in on it. The bright side is I do have this extra 60 acres of decent grass. My neighbors don't ! Don't see an acorn in a tree and no muscadines on the wild vines on one my fence rows.And we have gotten more rain in Pisgah than a few miles down the road.

I planted about 2 acres of iron clay peas mixed with soybean,s and sunnhemp. I put a brown 50 pound salt block in the middle. The field look,s great and the deer are hammering it.gonna put out a camera soon to see what,s coming to the feild.

I've never seen it this dry in Jackson Co. in the 15+ years we've been planting summer plots. The yard at the house is completely burned up in areas... have never seen that before either.

I dropped a 2 inch line in the creek today and pumped several thousand gallons of water on a half acre corn field. Never had to do that before. Now I'm trying to rig up a 2 inch sprinkler on a cart and move over to a bigger (4 acre) corn field. Too much time invested to just let it dry up. I just don't know if my small pump is up for the task. I need a high pressure fire fighting pump.

Not there yet, hope we don't get there.
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=ch...%20in%20alabama

We didn't get a drop out of that big storm that moved thru Gurly yesterday evening.

I was only 9 years old then but I still remember the heat from that summer. I hope that was a once in a lifetime drought or us. I still remember seeing 106 on the thermometer on the front porch of my grandparents house. That was under the porch, in the shade.

That year changed the face of farming forever on Sand Mountain. It put most of the smaller farmers out of business.

It was hotter than hades wearing a ventilated bee jacket yesterday.

I noticed my Durana Clover is hurting where I bush hogged it. Barely clipped it, it's still doing well where I didn't get it cut and has weeds in it. The duck hole is growing but would like some rain, then again millet doesn't take a lot of water. The corn in the duck hole well it's toast and my farmers corn looks ok here but up the road, not so much.

my son had 2 baseball games yesterday, one at 10 and the other at 1...absolutely miserable. My legs were burning from the heat coming off the grass. I think the heat index was 106 or so...

I think 1980 drought ranks in the top 10 natural disasters dollar wise of all time nationally. It started early June and was totally dry and brutally hot for over 2 months. Put many farmers out of business in the south and lower mid west.