Praying for more rain

Adam Melichar said that last week’s rains helped him sleep better.

The rain came just in time for the second planting of corn to germinate, said Melichar, who with his family owns and operates Melichar Broad Acres in the Town of Port Washington.

“We were getting nervous until the rain last week,” he said, noting the corn he planted at the beginning of the month had yet to germinate. “Now that it rained, it will germinate.”

Ozaukee County is experiencing a moderate drought, with a rain deficit of more than three inches, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

This year is the 12th driest year to date in the last 127 years, according to the monitor, a partnership between the National Drought Mitigation Center the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

It’s been so dry the Department of Natural Resources last week asked people across the state to refrain from burning due to the drought.

But in the last week, roughly 1-1/2 inches of rain fell in the area. While that’s not enough to end the drought, it was a huge relief for farmers like Melichar.

“It needs to continue to rain,” he said. “There’s not a lot of moisture in the ground.”

But, Melichar added, Ozaukee County is blessed with heavy clay soils that hold moisture, which in this weather benefits farmers and gardeners.

“We’re a little more drought tolerant than some,” he said.

Melichar said he plants about 950 acres of corn and 750 acres of alfalfa. He planted roughly 475 acres of corn during the second week of May, and he said that crop “is looking pretty good.”

“It was just starting to look like it needed rain,” he said. 

It was the second planting of about 475 acres that had him worried.

“It’s been in two, three weeks and you can barely see it,” he said.

His first crop of alfalfa was very good, perhaps a record setting crop, Melichar said, but his second crop is going to be “real light.”

“For the little rain we got, it looks like it’s going to be OK but light,” he said.

  They will typically have two more crops during the year, he noted.

The alfalfa and corn are used to feed the 1,500 cows on the farm, Melichar said.

“If we keep getting rain, we’ll be fine,” he said. 

“You know, we never have any control over the rain. For the last three years, we couldn’t shut it off.”

Andy Holschbach, director of the county’s Land and Water Management Department, said crops in the county “are actually doing really well.”

But, he added, it depends on whether they germinated before it got too dry, noting that often drought forces plants to create a deeper root system that pulls water from deep in the soil.

“And now that we’ve had some rain, that’ll put the plants back on track,” he said. “We’re lucky we did get some rain — an inch and a half, that’s a substantial amount of rain. It really did save the day. Driving around, the crops seem to have perked up. The color’s back.

“This inch and a half, it’s not going to make up for the deficit we have. But if we get adequate rain in July and August when crops are pollinating, I think our crops are going to fare well.”

  A lot of the corn and soybeans that have been planted “are really looking nice,” Holschbach said. 

Winter wheat is at a critical stage right now, he said, but the fields look nice.

“The grain can be a little light,” he said, and the drought may also impact the second cutting of hay, bringing down the tonnage.

Holschbach said farmers who use no-till techniques and cover crops find their fields retain moisture better and the soils remain cooler and function better.

“That’s a big benefit,” he said.

It’s not just farmers who are dealing with the drought. Home gardeners have found themselves watering plants constantly, especially their container plants.

“I think that was liquid gold to the farmers,” Ozaukee Master Gardeners President Sue Kinas said of the recent rains.

But the lack of moisture isn’t the only thing home gardeners have been contending with, she said. 

“We’re seeing a lot more odd insects and an increase in certain insects we don’t normally see this early in the year,” Kinas said,  such as the sweetpotato flea beetle, which feeds on leaves.

People with home orchards are experiencing a number of problems with their apple trees because of the recent wave of high temperatures as well as the lack of moisture.

Many people have been calling the yard and garden line with a wide variety of questions, Kinas said. Tomato plants and the amount of watering they require is a frequent query, as well as questions about how to deal with ant invasions and even whether city water is going to damage plants — the answer is no.

“This has been a weird year,” Kinas said. “In May the flowering trees got nipped by frost, then it got ridiculously hot. The impact of this I don’t think anyone knows.”