Wacky weather patterns present serious challenges for Delaware’s farmers

When Charlie Smith first planted gala apple trees at his family’s Bridgeville farm in 1989, he could bank on picking them some time around August 20.

Nearly three decades later, those apples would be rotting on the ground if he waited that long. Now the picking must be done in the first week of August.

“It seems like the seasons are all screwed up and that’s what the farmers depend on,” Smith said. “I would like everyone to be more aware of how the climate is affecting everything and how the climate is changing. I see it firsthand.”

On top of gradual changes to Delaware’s growing season, this year has proven more challenging with week after week of clouds and rain, broken up only by a stint of abnormally hot, dry weeks that threatened to scorch the deliciously red apple skins of the fruit hanging in the Smiths’ orchard.

For this 111-year-old family farm, more than a foot of rain in April and May meant a total loss for 25 acres of string beans. Persistent rains also wiped out the four acres of pumpkins Smith hoped to sell at T.S. Smith & Sons' market at the corner of U.S. Route 13 and Redden Road.

“The weather is becoming more extreme one way or the other – it’s either drought or flood or it’s cold or above-average temperatures,” Smith said. “It was 20 degrees above normal [Tuesday] night. It should be 55 on my apples right now. It’s real.”

The scent of fall fills the Smiths' newest roadside market, with deep-colored mums lined up outside and the sweet smell of freshly baked goods hanging in the air. Overflowing baskets of apples and vegetables show little evidence of the struggle that farmers like Smith have faced.

“I’ve had a good volume of apples, and that kind of helps make up for the quality issues,” Smith said. “It is one of the wettest [years] I’ve seen, but every year is different. There’s a new challenge every year.”

Normally, Delaware sees an average of 45 inches of rainfall annually. But since April, more than 30 inches has fallen on many parts of the state – bringing the threat of disease, mold and mildew to valuable crops like pumpkins and stopping heavy, expensive farm equipment dead in muddy tracks.

It has been an uphill battle against weird, wet weather since the spring start of the planting season, said Delaware Department of Agriculture Secretary Michael Scuse.

For some farmers, early losses of corn crops drowned by the rain meant an expensive re-do of plantings. For others, it was too late to try again.

Then a stretch of several weeks of dry weather and extreme heat in late June and early July took a toll on the corn that had survived the rains, as well as more delicate crops like Smith’s apples.

“And if it does not stop raining, it’s going to make it even worse,” Scuse said.

Those losses will have direct impacts on the livelihoods of farmers, which Scuse said could have an economic ripple in Delaware.

“A year like this has a major impact on our producers’ bottom line,” he said. “When you look at the losses that are going to occur in our agriculture community here and especially the states south of us that just got hit with the hurricane, the farmers out there just aren’t going to have the money to spend to buy other things, and it does ultimately have an impact on our communities.”

While Scuse and others wait for the mud to dry so farmers can get in their fields, they’re also keeping a close eye on smaller, expensive crops like pumpkins.

Pumpkins, cucumbers, Lima beans and other vegetables that are low to the ground are at greater risk in these damp conditions. For some farmers, that means an added expense of battling nature with additional fungicides.

For Michael Fennemore, fourth-generation owner/operator of Fifer Orchards in Camden-Wyoming, it means hoping that a cover crop planted among the acres of pumpkins will provide an adequate pillow between pumpkin and dirt to stave off those problems.

It also means keeping an eye out for the bad ones and making sure their problems don't spread to other future jack-o-lanterns.

Nationally, agricultural experts are expecting record harvests for corn and soybeans, Scuse said, meaning those local losses may not have much impact on the overall market. He said so far Delaware is harvesting less corn per acre than normal but expects that – if the rain holds off – there could be a pretty decent soybean crop.

“But that may be the only bright spot we have,” Scuse said.

For more delicate and disease-prone vegetables hard hit by too much water, people could find themselves paying a little more than usual for fresh produce, Scuse said.

“This has just been a really horrible year for agriculture,” Scuse said. “It might take a couple good years for some of our producers to recover from the losses they’re going to experience.”

But a little bit of rain – OK, a lot of rain – cannot hold Delaware’s farmers back.

“It’s far from the end of the world,” said Stewart Ramsey of Ramsey's Farms near Wilmington. “We have a big crop out there in the field, but it’s not a big crop until it’s in your bin.”

The 12 acres of pumpkins at Ramsey’s farm are ready for the public to pick. For now, they are looking good, but any additional losses regionally could mean prices might go up.

Ramsey, also the president of the New Castle County Farm Bureau, said his farm recently celebrated one of its best opening days since they began in the 1990s. A beautiful day with a cool breeze and low humidity had friends and families frolicking in the pumpkin patch.

Now all the farmers banking on Delaware's growing agritourism market are crossing their fingers that October lives up to its past trends of dry weather so that each weekend can look like that.

“We live for October,” he said. “But we’re a weather-dependent business. Just having a good umbrella and a raincoat is just not good enough when you’re a farmer.”

Over at Fifer Orchards, Fennemore is hopeful that businesses like his and Ramsey’s will be able to recover. The nearly 100-year-old farm and its employees have done everything in their power to make sure their markets are stocked and customers are still getting the fresh produce they need to feed their families.

“Agriculture is still the number one industry is our small state and I think that it’s part of the fabric and the heritage of our state as well,” he said. “We just count our blessings that we have the products that we do have to sell. It’s not all doom and gloom.”

While Fifer Orchards did not experience any of the losses seen at T.S. Smith & Sons and other farms in southern parts of the state, though Fennemore said he is leaving a slightly higher percentage of pumpkins behind in lower-lying fields.

Farmers want their customers to choose only the best of the best of their crop, so those that do not make the cut often return to the land as fertilizer.

Fennemore said he does not want people to be discouraged. There are still plenty of pumpkins, gourds, tomatoes and corn-maze fun to go around at the Delaware farms that invite the public to enjoy the best fall has to offer.

“We feel pretty blessed and fortunate that we have a pumpkin crop at all,” Fennemore said. “You don’t have to look very far away to see the Carolinas and Pennsylvania and other parts of our region that really have had it worse off. We always try to stay positive and take it one day at a time.”

Contact reporter Maddy Lauria at (302) 345-0608, mlauria@delawareonline.com or on Twitter @MaddyinMilford.

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