MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — Farmers in West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle are making several adjustments to deal with drought conditions.
Katy Orr-Dove , president of Orr’s Farm Market in Martinsburg, said they’ve been monitoring things closely.
“I know people are getting concerned all throughout the Eastern Panhandle and probably other parts of our state,” Orr-Dove said.
Workers are irrigating some of the property at the Orr Farm, Orr-Dove said.
“There’s a lot of things on our farm that aren’t irrigated and you can’t irrigate them. We’re just praying that the sizes came in okay on some of the peaches. We’re irrigating some of our berry patches,” she said.
State Agriculture Commissioner Kent Leonhardt said this week the Eastern Panhandle is down 4.5 inches of rain in the past two months.
“Right now the dryness in Jefferson County is the second worst in 130 years and Berkeley County and Morgan County it’s the third worst in 130 years,” Leonhardt said. “This is is a little more serious than we’re use to seeing.”
Orr-Dove said they are doing a lot of hand-watering.
“It takes three people probably three hours, at least, to a half a day to water just one garden,” she said.
One of the things they are hand-watering are the pumpkin plants.
“Those pumpkins are for different things, for the farmer’s market, field trips, school groups,” Orr Dove said. “It does raise the price for us with production.”
Orr-Dove said she’s hoping for improved conditions in the near future because right now they are having to make decisions about which crops to put their focus on.
“We have to pick and choose what we are watering right now,” she said. “Our cornfields are not irrigated, green beans are behind right now. I think we’re just not seeing as much come out of the garden yet. I’m hoping for some downpours to increase the harvest a little bit.”
It does look like a rainier pattern next week across West Virginia.