{"id":4650,"date":"2015-10-06T14:42:08","date_gmt":"2015-10-06T18:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/?p=4650"},"modified":"2015-10-06T14:42:08","modified_gmt":"2015-10-06T18:42:08","slug":"flooding-a-shipwreck-for-area-farms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/2015\/10\/flooding-a-shipwreck-for-area-farms\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Flooding a &#8216;shipwreck&#8217; for area farms&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the first stories to come out from South Carolina about the impacts of the flooding on agriculture was published yesterday in the <em>Post and Courier<\/em> with the title above. \u00a0The flooding hit at a critical time for farmers, near the end of the growing season when many crops are close to harvest if not already gathered.<\/p>\n<p>According to the article, Clemson Extension agent Charles W. Davis Jr. said that coming on the heels of a summer cursed with dry heat, the flooding \u201cis kind of adding insult to injury.\u201d \u00a0While it\u2019s too early to assign a dollar estimate to agricultural damage statewide, Davis described it as a \u201chuge financial blow.\u201d \u00a0You can read the full article at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.postandcourier.com\/article\/20151005\/PC0301\/151009676\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.postandcourier.com\/article\/20151005\/PC0301\/151009676<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The article says that in addition to destroying many crops that are ready to harvest, it is also likely to affect perennial crops like pecans, peaches and blueberries since the saturated soil will not allow their roots to breathe, putting immense stress on them and making them more susceptible to diseases. \u00a0The wet soil is also making it difficult to get tractors out into the fields, which will hamper the planting of winter crops and forage.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Dennis Hancock, UGA forage specialist, says that bermuda grass pastures are also likely to see problems in the coming season, since they also don&#8217;t do well when conditions are wet. \u00a0He says that he expects farmers to have problems with weeds and poor stand health next year in response to the wet conditions now.<\/p>\n<p>KFVS out of Greenville SC reported that rafts of fire ants have been reported floating in flood waters. \u00a0The ants link themselves into giant rafts to protect eggs until the water recedes and they can create a new colony. \u00a0You can see a video at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kfvs12.com\/story\/30186771\/islands-made-of-ants-seen-floating-around-the-upstate\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.kfvs12.com\/story\/30186771\/islands-made-of-ants-seen-floating-around-the-upstate<\/a>.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_4651\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4651\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2015\/10\/flooded-pumpkins.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4651\" src=\"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2015\/10\/flooded-pumpkins-300x210.jpg\" alt=\"Source: Commons Wikimedia\" width=\"300\" height=\"210\" srcset=\"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2015\/10\/flooded-pumpkins-300x210.jpg 300w, https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2015\/10\/flooded-pumpkins-197x138.jpg 197w, https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/files\/2015\/10\/flooded-pumpkins.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-4651\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: Commons Wikimedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the first stories to come out from South Carolina about the impacts of the flooding on agriculture was published yesterday in the Post and Courier with the title above. \u00a0The flooding hit at a critical time for farmers, near the end of the growing season when many crops are close to harvest if [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":217,"featured_media":4651,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,12,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate-and-ag-in-the-news","category-crops","category-extension-agent-outreach"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/217"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4650"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4652,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4650\/revisions\/4652"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.extension.uga.edu\/climate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}