By Hannah W. Wever

Published: May 1, 2008

By Hannah Wever
Review Staff Writer

Orange County’s April showers bring May flowers (and ample mud). And this year, the extra-wet April weather brought a ranking in the record books as one of the rainiest on record.
April 2008 now stands in third place as the wettest month locally since record-keeping began at the Northern Piedmont Agricultural Research and Extension Center. Almost eight inches—7.97 inches--of precipitation in April of 1983 earned that year the top spot as wettest on record, followed by 7.62 inches in 1987.
Dave Starner, superintendent at the research center, said last month’s rain has brought the region out of rainfall deficit for the year. In January, only an inch of precipitation fell; February’s precipitation totaled 2.8 inches. March was slightly wetter with 2.32 inches of rainfall.
Now, he said, abundant April rains brought below-normal year-to-date levels closer to what’s normal for around here. In fact, so far in 2008, 12.57 inches of precipitation were measured; that’s just about a half-inch more than the annual average.
“We’re saturated all the way through each layer of soil,” he said. “That’s really good news.”
Starner said the recent rains’ contribution to ground water levels gives the county an promising head start as summer approaches, and brings with it another potential season of drought.
In March, ground water levels were at a record setting low of 30 feet below the surface, but Starner said April’s plentiful precipitation has brought the ground water measurement up four feet to 26 feet below the ground’s surface.
“As long as we keep getting an inch and a quarter to an inch and a half of rain per week, then we’re off to a good start,” Starner said. But, he cautioned, “Virginia typically goes three weeks without rain, and suddenly our pastures and our yields are limited by those dry spells.”
Orange County Extension Agent Steve Hopkins said for the farming community, there are obvious benefits to crops from the recent rains, but there are still long-reaching impacts of several consecutive years of damaging dry weather.
Even as the raindrops fell, Hopkins said the region remained under a drought designation on the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Drought Monitor.
“This is mainly due to our projected low ground water table because of the 2007 drought and dry winter. The rain has not gotten us out of the woods as far as ground water concerns, but it sure has helped out topsoil moisture,” Hopkins added.
The increased moisture in the topsoil, he said, is good news for certain crops and plantings, but others will continue to suffer from the poor growing conditions of past seasons.
“This should help improve our pasture and hay conditions. The down side is that it has delayed our corn planting progress, which may have some impact on yields if conditions do not improve soon,” Hopkins explained. “It has also delayed early cutting of hay. The impact on the hay to date is certainly more positive then negative. The dry and cool March will still have an impact reducing first cutting yields.”
According to Hopkins, farmers have other factors affecting their fields and yields.
“Maybe the biggest impact on yields has been the extremely high fertilizer prices forcing many farmers to reduce the amount of fertilizer applied to hay and pastures. The current economics for livestock farmers is not that good, with lower then a year ago calf prices and input cost 50 percent-plus higher then a year ago,” Hopkins said.
“The wet weather nationwide is delaying corn planting, which is forcing high corn prices even higher. This may be good for the grain farmer, but is not so good for the livestock farmer. Everything goes in cycles; hopefully cattle producers will have their shot at higher prices later this year or next year.”