The Daily Southerner, Tarboro, NC

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  • T.J. ROYAL

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July 28, 2008

CORN CROP

‘When I can see over corn, it's bad’

Compared to cotton or tobacco, corn is not near the top of the moneymaker list for Edgecombe County farmers.

With expensive maintenance costs and sandy land to plant it on in the county, Extension Agent Art Bradley said that for "most of our growers, corn is not their primary crop.

"It's not what they depend on (for) a lot of their income," not like with cotton or tobacco, Bradley said.

In 2006, revenue from corn was less than 4 percent of the county's agriculture income, just $4 million out of nearly $120 million.

In 2007, Edgecombe's corn income was $5.4 million, spread across 22,000 acres.

That acreage will drop more than 40 percent this year, as Bradley estimated 12,800 acres of corn were planted in the county.

So far this year, Bradley has not estimated Edgecombe's yield average. He did say that a third of the county's crop is expected to average less than 50 bushels per acre, with some spots only yielding 20 bushels per acre. The lowest yields will be in the southern and eastern parts of the county, Bradley said.

In 2006, the yields were excellent, at 124 bushels per acre. The yield in 2007 was only average, at 70 bushels-per-acre, but Bradley said he was surprised the crop performed even that well.

Last year, he thought the county would have only a 50 bushels-per-acre average, because of the severe drought the region went through and continues to endure.

This year's crop has to endure the conditions that have held over from last year.

Farmers who planted their corn earlier this year, around the first week instead of the third week of May, "suffered the worst" from the dry weather, Bradley said.

Unlike tobacco or cotton, which have six week bloom times and can bounce back from drought with some rain, corn has to have rain during its short week-to-10-day bloom time to have a satisfactory yield, Bradley said.

When the rain showers came earlier this month, he said they "probably helped about a third to a half of our (corn) crop.

"The other (corn) was beyond the rain really helping it," he added.

The lack of rain affected not just the corn's stalk and ear size, but even tampered with the corn's pollination cycle, leaving ears of corn with fewer kernels, he said.

On U.S. 258 South near the U.S. 43 intersection, a field of corn had stalks barely waist-high, afflicted with the small ear size and poor pollination Bradley described.

A 25-mile drive up U.S. 258 North showed an entirely different field of corn. Across the highway from his equipment yard, farmer Wayne Evans, 53, has a six-acre plot filled with corn stalks between six to eight feet tall.

Evans has one of the largest farming operations in the county, and he planted corn on 525 acres. His two largest crops are tobacco and soybeans, he said.

He had planted corn on U.S. 258 North in 2006 and 2007, but this year leased it to Halifax County farmer Ricky Hux.

This year, most of his crop is on N.C. 111 near Pinetops, and it's looking "better than average" so far if some rain would come, Evans said. He said none of his crop is going to be short or have a small ear size, which keeps it from being a "total loss."

Worst case, if the rain doesn't come, Evans said his crop will probably end up just average.

But he added that areas where he grew corn this year were hit with rain pockets that didn't spread across the county.

He empathized with farmers who have drastically reduced corn this year too.

Standing around five-feet, six-inches tall, Evans said "When I can see over corn, it's bad."

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