There's a Problem With the Stalks
The rainy, cool summer is impacting corn crops
AP
Connecticut farms are finding small corn crops, because of the wet and cool summer.
Some local corn farmers are turning to cannon blasts and fertilizer to protect a staple of summer menus from blackbirds, raccoons and bad summer weather, but it does not seem to be working.
A Goshen corn farmer is are having crop troubles this summer, the Waterbury.
"The whole field looked terrible. It was all yellow ... and it was short," Doug Allen, of Windy Hill Farm in Goshen, told the Waterbury Republican-American. "This is the worst I've ever seen it for all the crops. Raspberries had fungus. Beans had fungus."
He planted 125 rows but only about 50 have survived the season, he said.
Paul Bucciaglia, manager of Fort Hill Farm in New Milford, recently told the Danbury News Times that his corn crop is doing fine.
However, farmers in the corn belt are seeing problems, too. Plants, which will be harvested in September, are growing at about half the five-year average, Bloomberg reports.
The problem is further escalated by corn prices plunging 43 percent in the past year, due in part to U.S. Department of Agriculture predictions that this would be the second-largest crop ever.
The record-breaking summer is going to impact some fall favorites as well. Many corn stalk mazes won’t be ready until later than usual.
Posted Friday, Aug 21, 2009 - 11:42 AM EST
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