Record books already taking a beating from summer heat (Top Story)

By MILES JACKSON
AFP Correspondent

NEW BRUNSWICK — Wilting, withering, mercury-popping heat hit New Jersey early this growing season and hasn’t stopped baking the state since, according to state officials and farmers.
And the season has the potential to break some of the remaining  temperature records not already broken this year before the summer is over, according to Dr. David Robinson, state climatologist based at Rutgers University.
Robinson said two records already have fallen as April and June are the warmest on record in New Jersey with May going down as the fifth warmest on the books since record keeping began 116 years ago.
“It’s been hot in the north, central and south,” Robinson said. “No part of the state has been spared.”
“High Point, normally the coolest part of the state, has had three 90 degree days,” Robinson added of the mountainous north-central state park along the New York border. “The rest of the state has had more than 30 days of 90 temperatures.”
July was on track for becoming the second hottest on record, Robinson said, with April, May and June of this year already on the books as the hottest of those three months combined on record.
“We had our first 90 degree day on April 7, very early in the year even at stations along the shore,” he added. “Memorial Day was 90 degrees and it really hasn’t stopped since.”
To top things off, much of the north and central part of the state has been extremely dry with only the southern and extreme western portions of the state getting any significant rainfall to help offset the above average temperatures.
“But that’s varied from 1 inch of rainfall in some areas of the state to 7 inches in others during the same period of time,” Robinson said. “At least we’re getting some rainfall in our southern growing region and in the Delaware River watershed areas to help fill the reservoirs.”
That hasn’t been much of a comfort to Burlington County cranberry grower Stephen Lee IV, who has been irrigating every day to save the 127 acres of his ground-hugging crop.
“If we didn’t have irrigation, we’d be in a lot of trouble,” Lee said on a 95-degree day during the last weekend of July. “With the irrigation, we can keep things cooled enough so the berries don’t get scalded.”
Down the road from Lee’s operation, Anthony Russo grows 300 acres of sweet corn that has suffered more from lack of water than heat.
“The corn can take the heat,” Russo said. “But we’ve really had to keep the water on it because it’s been so bad dry.”
Eastern New Jersey saw some scattered showers throughout the season, “but not enough to amount to anything,” he added.
Across the state in Salem County, the corn is holding its own at Sickler Farms, a Salem County diary operation that has been in the path of several key rainstorms during the heat of the summer.
But the Sickler family’s 125 Holsteins haven’t held up as well to the sweltering heat, according to Ralph Sickler, one of the brothers who operate the milk parlor/freestanding barn operation.
“Production is down because of the heat,” Sickler said within the cool of the milking parlor the Holsteins are able to enter without going out into the sun.
“We keep them in the barn, keep fans and misting sprinklers on them,” Sickler said. “How much production is down I can’t say. But we do as much as we can to keep them comfortable.”
In a large freestanding barn, the Holsteins eat hay under the sprinklers and fans without any apparent discomfort in the climate at least 10 or more degrees cooler than the 90 degree outside temperature. 
The cows seem more interested in feed than anything else in surrounding kept clean of excess manure and free of flies in addition to the heat-moderating measures.
If Sickler’s cows are suffering, it doesn’t show.
The farm is a neat, postcard-perfect operation with a well-thought out plan to keep the cows out of the elements during any season.
Unlike their human keepers, Sickler’s cows are never exposed to the scorching sun.
Honeybees, important pollinators in the agricultural food chain, also suffer when the state’s crops suffer from hot weather, according to Tim Schuler, apiarist for State of New Jersey Department of Agriculture.
“When the flowers of the plants the bees collect pollen and nectar from aren’t doing well, the bees have a hard time collecting enough food,” Schuler said. “So when the crops are stressed from heat, it can stress the bees.”
But the hives themselves are wonders of temperature self-regulation given proper pollen and nectar supply, Schuler said.
“The hives can’t get too hot or the developing baby bees could be in danger,” he said. “The adult bees will collect water, send some bees out of the hive with those remaining inside it fanning with their wings to keep it cool.”
Bees will also use half of the hive’s bees to cover the outside to help regulate the temperature, Schuler said.
The covering of the hives is called “bearding up,” Schuler said and is one of the wonders of the inner workings of the important pollinators.
Not far from Schuler’s, Charles Muzzarelli Sr., and family work to keep their 200-plus acres of mixed vegetables and culinary herbs cool in the East Vineland area, one of the state’s most varied and productive growing regions that straddles the Atlantic County/Cumberland County border
Again, it’s irrigation that he said is the key to keeping up with the heat.
“We haven’t had too much in the way of blossom drop in our tomatoes up until now,” said Muzzarelli, a large, sun-baked man who runs a state-of-the-art operation with his wife, Rita and two sons.
But Muzzarelli was keeping an eye on his crop of tomatoes on the 95-plus temperatures of the last of July.
“If this keeps up like this, we’re going to see some damage,” he said. “Our tomatoes, like as many of our crops that can use it, go under drip irrigation. Without that, we’d be in real trouble.”
Muzzarelli notes that the East Vineland region’s growing season is long, spanning three seasons and ground mostly doubled and even triple cropped.
“We haven’t been hurt as far as crop quality goes, but all this irrigation costs money,” he said. “Our expenses for this year are going to be up because of the cost of running all that irrigation.”
“And you consider that it’s not even the Dog Days of August yet,” Muzzarelli said with a voice that breaks into an ironic laugh. “But we’re in it for the long haul. We’ll just keep on watering and take what Mother Nature throws at us.”