Recent rain hurting Madison County farmers

MADISON CO., Ala. (WAFF) - It’s been a rainy week across the Tennessee Valley and Tuesday’s storms left many in the dark. Farmers and ranchers are now assessing their crops and cattle after the severe weather.

Not only are some of the crops damaged from high water, but the rain also washed a lot of fertilizer away. Some farmers spend more than $100,000 on fertilizer every year.

”Our goal now is to check on baby calves and make sure they were able to check on their mom’s. Hopefully, none drowned or get washed away down the creek. That has happened in the past. Some cattle get isolated on certain parts of ground where creeks are high and out of banks, so they have to fend for themselves in these kinds of days,” said farmer Rex Vaughn.

Vaughn, of Madison County, does a little bit of everything. He raises cattle and plants several different crops throughout the year. He says with the heavy rain, some crops are impacted more than others.

“Wet weather is not kind to wheat, so hopefully it won’t be a prolonged situation where it won’t be saturated ground days on end. We don’t like to see these kinds of rains. They do a lot of damage to crops, washing the seed out of the ground, fertilizer, causes a lot of erosion,” said Vaughn.

But there are some benefits with all of the rain we’ve received.

“We’re planting Spring crops end of March, April and May, we should have plenty of water on hand to get the seeds going pretty quickly,” said Vaughn.

Farmers like Rex Vaughn say the recent rain should not increase the already high prices you’re paying at the grocery stores. In order for that to occur, it would take several more consecutive rainy days.

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