Some Farmers Fear Crop Failure

HURLOCK, Md. (AP) - Torrential rains across Maryland this week left some farmers fearing crop damage, while others said parched crops would benefit from the dousing.

Maryland Agriculture Secretary Lewis Riley, who toured affected farms on Thursday, said it would take a while to assess how badly crops on the Eastern Shore were damaged.

"It is serious, there's no question about it," Riley said. "It's just kind of a scattered pattern of damage. With water damage, it takes a while to really see how bad the damage is."

Damage was worst in Caroline and Dorchester counties, where some chicken houses flooded and vegetable plots rotted in standing water, said Liz Anderson, executive director of the Maryland branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency.

Losses are expected to be between 20 percent and 60 percent in Dorchester County and 15 percent to 45 percent in Caroline County, Anderson told The (Baltimore) Sun.

Among the most sensitive crops are cucumbers, which quickly rot when sitting under water. Dorchester farmer Hilmar Helgason said he lost 80 percent of his 250 acres of cucumbers.

"It's totally wiped us out," Helgason told The Sun. "The ones that are ready to pick, we're not able to get in the field to pick them, and the ones behind them ... disease is getting into them."

Betsy Gallagher, agricultural science agent at the Dorchester County extension office, said many vegetable farmers with flood-affected crops would be busy spraying fungicide on soaked vegetables.

"Many vegetable crops are very susceptible to disease," Gallagher said.

Chicken houses in the area also suffered, though damage estimates were incomplete Thursday. Gallagher said at least four chicken houses in the Hurlock area flooded, killing the birds. An average house holds 30,000 birds, she said.

Not all crops suffered from the rain, however. Corn farmers who saw wilted stalks before the rains say the downpours may have improved their parched crop.

"It's a mixed bag," Gallagher said. The rain "certainly has helped the water table come up," which may help corn that didn't have enough water already.

Jim Lewis of the Caroline County extension service said that before the rains, only about 20 percent of his county's corn crop looked good. By Wednesday, he said only 10 percent of the corn acres were still under water, and the rest looked good.

One corn grower, Harry Nagel of Caroline County, said he lost three-fourths of his cucumbers but that 90 percent of his corn looked good.

"As bad as it is right now, I think it's going to work out," Nagel told The Sun.

Western Shore farmers were expected to benefit from the rains, especially growers of fruit and berries.

"This has really been a godsend," said Terry Poole, an extension agent in Frederick County.

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