Ohio harvest OK in spite of challenges

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

Ohio’s fall harvest is coming in better than expected following a challenging growing season that brought one variety of adverse weather after another, farmers and agriculture experts said.

“This has been the most-stressful season that I have ever experienced,” said Lisa Schacht, president of the Ohio Produce Growers and Marketers Association and operator of the Schacht Farm and its market in Canal Winchester in central Ohio.

A rainy spring hampered planting, then a sizzling summer put stress on crops, and that was followed by a cool and wet September that fostered diseases. But even after the series of headaches, the growing season can be declared a success, Schacht told The Columbus Dispatch.

“I don’t think you’ll find consumers who haven’t been able to find what they wanted at farmers markets and specialty stores,” she said.

Farmers were able to withstand all the tough weather conditions thanks to technological innovations, including seeds that are more weather-tolerant and equipment that allows them to plant faster to make up for lost time, said Joe Cornely, a spokesman for the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation.

Cornfields in Ohio are likely to yield 153 bushels per acre, compared with 163 last year, according to the latest estimate from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service. The state’s soybean yield is expected to be 44 bushels per acre, down four bushels from last year.

“We’re not going to have a bumper crop, but it’s far from a disaster,” Cornely told The Associated Press.

The difference in yields from last year is unlikely to make much difference for Ohio supermarket shoppers, he said. Though grocery costs have been experiencing bigger than normal increases this year, that’s largely been driven by factors other than farm-commodity prices, particularly the cost of fuel, Cornely said.

This year’s challenges are not over for the state’s farmers, who now are in a race to harvest their crops before the first big frost, said Peter Thomison, a corn specialist with the Ohio State University Extension.

“These days of 70-plus degree days we’ve had this past week have been a real blessing,” he told the Dispatch.