8/27/02

Tobacco grower Billy Coffee is on his last irrigation pond, and after that one dries up, it’s going to be tough to irrigate 50 acres of tobacco.
“I’ve been farming 24 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” Coffee said. “Even older folks around here say they’ve never seen it this dry.” Over the summer, he’s used up three farm ponds that were 1 to 1.5 acres. His fourth pond — a 5.5 acre pond — is likely to go dry by the last week of August.
According to the Virginia Agricultural Statistics Service, the Old Dominion’s yields are projected to be down for flue-cured tobacco, cotton, peanuts and corn crops, compared to last year, which was the third consecutive year of drought in the Commonwealth.
Tobacco is Virginia’s No. 1 cash crop and it generates close to $132 million in cash receipts annually.
“It’s going to take a hurricane to bust this drought,” Coffee said. “A thunderstorm with 1 to 2 inches would help, but we need a week of wet weather.”
He pumps water from farm ponds to spray on flue-cured tobacco fields via a high-pressure jet spray system. Tobacco and soybeans are the main sources of income for his family. “Even if it rains now, it’s going to be too late for the soybeans.” The drought, coupled with heat, has dwarfed his tobacco plants, which will decrease yield.
Neighboring Southside Virginia farmers with corn crops already have allowed dairy farmers to cut their corn for silage because it didn’t grow enough to produce corn for grain, Coffee said. Some are harvesting soybean plants to use as “hay” for cattle because they didn’t produce enough mature soybean pods.
Some tobacco growers don’t have irrigation systems, and their yields will be down as much as 70 percent, Coffee said, adding that his yields will be down 20 percent because he’s tried to conserve water.
Over in the Shenandoah Valley, Rockingham County poultry producers Matt and Andrea Lohr must use thousands of gallons of well water to feed and cool birds in their four poultry houses.
Each house holds 25,000 broilers.
“When the birds are full grown, one house will drink 2,000 gallons daily,” Mrs. Lohr said. “In the peak of the summer, when the birds are big, we use our foggers to cool them down, and that can use up to 1,000 gallons daily, but normally that is just a short time during the summer.”
During the 1999 drought, the Lohrs had to drill a third well. This spring, they drilled a fourth well because one of the original three went dry.
They also have an underground reservoir tank that fills up at night and supplies water during the day.
“We’re not set up to pump water from any ponds,” Mrs. Lohr said. “The two we have are dried up anyway.”
Broilers are Virginia’s No. 1 livestock commodity, generating $441 million in cash receipts annually.