July turning out to be mostly favorable for crops in central, south Alabama

By Jim Langcuster

Extension Communications Specialist

July 21, 2008 - Many Alabamians draw a sharp line dividing north and south Alabama - a fact driven home time and again to Dale Monks during his travels throughout his adopted state.

For his part, Monks prefers to think of Alabama as several distinct regions. As an Alabama Cooperative Extension System agronomist, thinking this way provides him and other scientists with a clearer picture of how crops fare, depending on their location within the state.

If one crop could be described as faring exceptionally well this year throughout the state, it’s wheat, Monks says.

“It’s really been outstanding this year,” Monks says, speaking at the Precision Agriculture and Field Crops Day, held July 10 at Isbell Farms in Cherokee.

“The numbers we’ve been getting back have been from 60 to 65 bushels an acre all the way to 90 bushels an acre.”

Two key factors worked to the special benefit of wheat growers this year — prices and weather, Monks says, adding that he expects an equal or even larger crop this fall.

“We were excited about the kind of prices we got this time, plus the weather worked really well and so did the harvest.”

“Any time we can get a cash crop like that we’re excited about it.”

Monks says the crop’s current good fortune also offers added opportunities for double cropping and soil conservation.

On the other hand, the current corn crop presents a mixed picture.

While stressing that some corn plantings in central and south Alabama represent some of the best he’s seen in years, Monks says that others, particularly in the southeast Alabama Wiregrass and parts of central Alabama, border on disaster.

Predictably, moisture remains the critical factor.

“It all works around the rainfall,” Monks says, adding that when rain is ample, “we get jam-up good crops,” and when rain is sparse, the crops suffer.

This is the reason why dryland corn remains a tough proposition in parts of central and south Alabama, he says. And this holds especially true for coastal plains soils with low water-holding capacity and low organic matter.

In those cases, he says, corn is a “tough sell, unless we get rainfall at the right time.”

Like corn, soybeans present a similar mixed picture, depending on rainfall, though the overall picture is “reasonably” good, Monks says.

On the other hand, peanuts are getting along well, largely because of their drought-tolerant attributes.

“They’ll send the root down really deep and hang on for a long time waiting for rainfall,” Monks says, adding that peanuts are doing especially well in the Wiregrass where they have been historically grown.

Meanwhile, central and south Alabama cotton plantings range “anywhere from knee-high or lower and blooming in especially dry areas all the way to chest high in other areas.”

So far the crop looks good, Monk says, although some growers are dealing with scattered stink bug problems. Growers previously dealt with plant bugs problems throughout the spring. Meanwhile, in scattered areas of conventional cotton plantings across south Alabama and Georgia, growers are dealing with a tobacco budworm outbreak.

All in all, growers in central and south Alabama remain optimistic about the growing season.

“July seems to be turning out favorably for us,” Monks says. “Temperatures are a little cooler and we’re getting more scattered showers than we’ve seen in the last couple of years.”

The region where all crops are faring best is southwest Alabama.

“Year in and year out, they fare the best because they get the afternoon showers off the Gulf.”