Dry Lands Hurting Southern Farmers

Monday, November 20th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

SYLVESTER, Ga. (AP) â€” Jerald Carter struggled to keep his peanuts and cotton alive during the summer drought. Now that those crops are almost harvested, he has another concern: Will his land receive enough rain to germinate winter wheat seed.

It's extremely dry from southwestern Virginia to eastern Louisiana, forcing producers to feed cattle the hay they would normally use during the coldest winter months and hindering the planting of winter wheat and other cover crops.

``The pastures are in bad shape,'' said Becky Walton, a spokeswoman for the South Carolina Department of Agriculture. ``They're feeding their hay now, and South Carolina is a hay-deficit state. When we have a shortage â€” when it doesn't rain and we don't get the growing season we need â€” they have to use what they have stored for winter.''

Winter wheat is a relatively minor crop in the South, compared with tobacco, peanuts and cotton. Eighteen states, mostly in the West and Midwest, produced the bulk of the crop last year. The leading Southern states were Texas, with 6.2 million acres, North Carolina, with 650,000 and Tennessee with 500,000.

Southern farmers are expected to devote about 11 million acres to the crop this year, including 8.5 million acres in Texas, 720,000 acres in North Carolina and 580,000 acres in Tennessee.

The National Agricultural Statistics Service reports that rain has held up planting in Texas and low moisture has stressed the crop in North Carolina.

Carter and other Georgia farmers are expected to plant 250,000 acres of winter wheat, worth between $30 million and $40 million.

Carter has a plastic rain gauge mounted to a fence post near his office in a weathered, 75-year-old farm house with three rocking chairs on the front porch. His 2,000-acre farm is located near a southwestern Georgia community called Anderson City, about 10 miles south of Sylvester. Farmers gather at Carter's Grocery, built by his father in 1947, to sip coffee and chat.

Carter, 58, and his 27-year-old son, Joel, grow winter wheat to protect their land from wind and soil erosion. They reap a small profit from it in the spring, when few other crops are mature.

``There's not much money in it to begin with. If you have to water it, you're backing up,'' said Jerald Carter, who has irrigation but is reluctant to use it because it increases production costs.

Some of the Carters' ponds ran dry during the summer, leaving 120 acres of cotton and 160 acres of peanuts to wither in the intense heat and sunshine.

Joel Carter, who has been farming six years, said low commodity prices and the drought have made him question his choice of occupations.

Dewey Lee, a University of Georgia grain agronomist, said higher fuel prices and low commodity prices probably will mean fewer acres of wheat in Georgia during the current planting season.

Wheat is especially popular with farmers who practice conservation tillage, also known as limited-till farming. They harvest the wheat or kill it with herbicides in the spring and plant cotton or peanuts in the stubble. Instead of plowing the field, they use a tool that makes a small groove in the soil, just large enough for the seed.

``It increases organic matter, helps with erosion and increases the water holding capacity (of the soil),'' said extension agent Scott Monfort. ``It saves time and trips across the field.''

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On the Net:

National Association of Wheat Growers: http://www.wheatworld.org

Wheat Foods Council: http://wheatfoods.org