Carolina Farmers Finding Challenge in Managing Water

Like most farmers in North and South Carolina David Heath, Bountiful Blessings Farm in Craven County, North Carolina has had a tough time wrapping up planting, as well as getting wheat harvested during this long spell of wet weather:

“It’s a good wheat crop but we are ready to get the beans in the ground. We are looking for the dry spots and having to skip around a lot more than we are used to. The forecast looks good for getting everything finished up.”

As far as cotton acreage, Heath says that he’s not going to have as many acres as he’d originally planned:
 

"Its not on purpose, but with the falling prices and the wet weather, we will be only planting a little cotton. We’ll plant about 20 acres and see how that does. With prices the way they are , its hard to justify planting much more. We’ll just stick with the beans. “

When we heard from Heath earlier in the spring, he was cobbling together an irrigation system out of discarded parts and pieces from the days that they still grew tobacco. Heath says, needless to say they’ve not needed it:

“We have everything ready but haven’t had the opportunity to use it. We would have loved to have the rain a bit more spread out, but we are thankful for the rain.”
 

Heath explains that they’re also experimenting with a specialty soybean crop this year, as well:
 

“We have two acres of endamame in the ground that we are working with the NOrht Carolina Soybean producers to try to do some research. We are very excited to see the full potential of this crop.”
 

Heath plans to do a little experimenting to see if it’s the edamame that the deer like, or just soybeans in general:
 

“The initially liked the cotton, but then moved to the endamame. I don’t have any soybeans up yet so we don’t know.”
 

As far as the remainder of the growing season, Heath says it looks to be an exciting year:

“Looking forward to getting everything in the ground and watching it grow.”

David Heath of Bountiful Blessings Farm.