Farmers weather the drought

The region saw its driest October on record this year. And while wildfires burned more than 5,000 acres of Sterling State Forest and counties enacted drought warnings, local farmers encountered new challenges of their own.

“The general public doesn’t remember – or have a good recollection – of how the weather has been,” said Orange County Farm Bureau President Jason Touw. “Farmers remember because it’s our livelihood.”

Winter losses

Touw, who owns Wagon Wheel Farm in Goshen, N.Y., started taking precautions when the drought hit this fall – limiting water usage and fixing any leaks or drips in the chicken houses – to ensure his well would hold. His 300-acre farm is home to a variety of crops, some cows and 100 chickens.

“While we’re in a pretty serious drought right now ... we’re fortunate in one way that it happened not in the heart of the growing season,” said Touw. But, “it is definitely going to impact winter cereal crops.”

Like many local farms, Wagon Wheel plants “cereal grains” in the winter, such as rye, wheat and barley. The U.S. Department of Agriculture incentivizes farmers to plant these cover crops to prevent soil erosion. But they only receive the subsidy when the plants start to grow.

“And none of those crops are germinating, of course, in this weather,” said Touw. “The soil is dry as powder right now.”

Wagon Wheel Farm alone spent $5,000 on labor, fuel, seed and machinery to plant 45-acres of cover crops. “And we’re not going to get paid anything until it germinates,” Touw said.

Hoofing water

Nonchalant Cheese’s grass-fed dairy cows, meanwhile, saw their main food and water sources start to dry up in July, when summer heat scorched the grass and streams at Meadowburn Farm in Vernon, N.J.

“We don’t usually have to start feeding hay until October, November,” said farmer Jesse Clark. “But we were feeding hay for a period of time in July this year, and we’ve never, ever, ever had to do that. But the grass just wasn’t growing.”

Under normal circumstances, Clark’s herd of 30-plus cows grazes pastures on the farm, drinking from nearby streams and ponds. Those, too, have been dry since July due to a combination of heat and lack of rainfall.

To water the cows, Clark’s son has been hauling 800 gallons daily via tractor from the farm’s spring-fed pond to the herd’s troughs.

The cows, meanwhile, have been embarking on adventures of their own. “They were getting out a lot,” said Clark.

Three things, all tied to the drought, were motivating Clark’s cows to wander:

At the top of the list is green grass, which was not available in the pastures, but was growing roadside.

The dry earth also weakened barriers that normally would keep the herd contained; cows are more willing to “take the hit” from electric fences, Clark said, because the shock isn’t nearly as powerful when standing on dry land.

And river frontage in the main pasture – which is normally high, with muddy barriers that the cows wouldn’t normally try to cross – was low and dry enough that livestock were able to confidently sneak through drainage ditches and under fences for a fresh roadside snack.

“Most people have not raised cattle and aren’t familiar with cattle, so they get really, really alarmed if they see a cow that’s out. It doesn’t really alarm us at all; the only reason it concerns us is because it concerns our neighbors, and we want to be kind to our neighbors,” said Clark. “They’re herd animals, they don’t get lost. You don’t find missing cow signs on telephone poles.”

The bright side

The drought followed a bountiful growing season for local farms. Touw estimated that the growing season from May to September was the best it’s been in four years. “That put us in a pretty good place for where we are right now,” he said.

Jeff Vander Groef was happy to see a stretch of dry weather; it made for an easy harvest for his soybeans and corn at Vander Groef Farms in Wantage, N.J.

“Last fall was a very wet fall, it was the exact opposite of this year. We had a lot of struggles getting crops out of the fields,” he said. “That’s why the drought this year didn’t really bother us, because it made it much easier.”

And just in time for the holidays, Christmas tree farms appear to be surviving the drought with few consequences.

“This is the first time we’ve ever seen a drought in the fall like this,” said Shale Hill Farms’ Mike Garrett. He and his family have owned the 100-acre cut-your-own Christmas Tree Farm since the 1960s. “I know we’re in a drought now, but this spring and summer were actually the best growing season we’ve had in over 50 years.”

Droughtlook

The region finally saw significant rainfall on Nov. 21. Then the following day, some towns got enough snow to warrant school closures. But the recent bursts of wet weather have not done much to replenish water levels.

A rain gauge monitored by the National Weather Service in Sterling State Forest has only seen 2.6 inches of precipitation since Nov. 21. The Wanaque and Monksville reservoirs, just over 10 miles from Sterling, are currently hovering around 50 percent capacity.

“In a nutshell, it’s an improvement. It reduced the fire danger, but it’s not enough to say we’re out of the drought, or that the reservoirs are starting to fill or that groundwater is perking up,” said New Jersey State Climatologist David Robinson. “It’s a good primer that hopefully will be followed by additional rainfall and/or snow events. But that remains to be seen.”