Last weekend’s severe storms across the Carolinas left their mark in the western piedmont in the form of a large swath of marble to quarter sized hail. Ben Knox, Area Agronomist and farmer with North Carolina Department of Agriculture:
“It was bigger hail than I’ve ever seen before. Stretching from over near Lake Norman to Forsyth County, the storm covered a pretty big path.”
Knox explains that the hail that fell from the storm hit strawberries and vegetables in Iredell County:
“It started in eastern Iredell County, where a portion of the area, about a two mile radius, saw very heavy hail measuring about four plus inches. Over near Woodley, I saw a farmer’s vegetables that had been hit, it looked like he had taken a weed-eater to them. The hail destroyed them.”
And of course, in addition to vegetables and strawberries, several areas of winter wheat were affected, according to Knox:
“Wheat near the Amity Hill area was affected. I also heard from wheat farmers in Forsyth County and Davie County who had suffered hail damage. I’ve never seen such a large area affected by hail.”
As far as the stage of the wheat, and it’s chances of recovering, Knox explains:
“One variety I looked at was at the boot stage, or would be in about ten days. I could definitely see the head.”
In some areas, particularly Iredell County, road graders cleared roads of hail stones as much as four inches deep in places:
“My brother took the motor grader out and scraped the roads. In Iredell county they got the trucks out to scrape the roads.”
Knox says it could be a couple of weeks before the extent of damage, particularly to wheat will be known.
For more photos of the damage, visit our website, sfntoday.com
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