Rainy June Hurts Georgia’s Watermelon Harvest
FILE – In this Saturday, June 6, 2015, file photo, Maria Cantellano, left, talks with a customer while looking over crates of watermelons at her stand at the Atlanta Farmers Market in Atlanta. The Commerce Department releases wholesale trade inventories for May on Tuesday, July 12, 2016. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)
David Goldman / Associated Press
Increased rainfall in June put a damper on Georgia’s watermelon crop. Farmers had a hard time dealing with disease to their plants this summer caused by an abundance of rain.
“The majority of plant pathogens that we encounter are spread through rain splash – or through if there’s standing water that moves through a field – a lot of these pests are exacerbated when there’s a lot of rain,” said Coolong, a vegetable horticulturist with the UGA Extension in Tifton, Georgia.
Farmers reported damage from gummy stem blight. That’s a fungal disease that damages the leaves that protect the melons while they’re growing.
“A lot of growers had to make a call of ‘Do I spend a lot more money for a pest management program or do I maybe stop after a third harvest and go on to another field?’ In many cases that’s what occurred,” he said.
Coolong called the watermelon season as a whole “so-so” because growers did well with the early harvest in May before the heavy rain came. The majority of this year’s crop has been harvested, but farmers have planted a few hundred acres to harvest early this fall. Watermelons are Georgia’s No. 1 produce crop.
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