Northwest Florida Farmer Ryan Jenkins Reports Crops Running a Month Behind — But Reasons for Optimism

Jay, FL (NewsRadio 92.3) -- Jay farmer Ryan Jenkins checked in with Pensacola's Morning News Friday morning with his monthly farming update — and says while things are looking better than they did earlier this season the numbers tell a humbling story. Crops across the board are running about a month behind schedule.

The culprit is a season that swung from one extreme to the other. A drought that stretched back to last August pushed back planting and left fields too dry to work. Then when rain finally arrived it kept coming — and while the moisture was welcome it created its own set of problems. Wet fields meant weeds were growing faster than farmers could manage them. Equipment couldn't get in to apply fertilizer or chemicals at the right time. Cotton that needed to be slowed down and encouraged to produce fruit was instead spending its energy growing taller.

Jenkins noted that the old farming saying — cotton thigh-high by the Fourth of July — simply didn't apply this year. Normally by early July a farmer wants to be mostly done with crop management other than insecticide applications. This year there is still about a month of catch-up work ahead.

The bright spot is corn. Jenkins says the corn crop is looking genuinely good and has received enough rain that even a dry stretch in the coming weeks likely wouldn't hurt it significantly. He is hoping to report the start of corn shelling when he checks back in next month.

On the financial side Jenkins says fuel and fertilizer prices remain elevated. He says the area's farmers were unable to pre-purchase fertilizer at lower prices and ended up paying peak prices for inputs at a time when the season was already challenging. He says he is still struggling with those costs.

Jenkins also addressed the recent death of an Escambia County man killed by a tractor — noting that while he doesn't know the details of that specific case older tractors with bypassed or worn-out safety switches are a leading cause of farm fatalities. He says experienced farmers can become complacent after years of doing the same tasks and that complacency combined with aging equipment is a dangerous combination. He says he can name five people in the area alone who have been run over by their own tractors.