Summer season for Wicomico County Farmers is off to a slow start

WICOMICO COUNTY, Md. – A warm April and cold May caused a delay for crops peeking up out of local farmers’ fields.

Geno Lowe owns and operates Rosewood Farms in Hebron.
He says the cool temperatures in the past few weeks have pushed back the initial growth for crops.

“Yeah they could look a little bit better right now, they don’t have as good color as they could have, a little bit of sunshine and heat and they should green up,” Lowe said.

As President of the Wicomico County Farm Bureau, he knows that’s not the only problem that farmers are facing at the start of the summer season. Lowe says while the cost of farming supplies has come down a bit – so has the market price of their crops.

“Grain crops, like corn and soy beans, kind of a little behind,” Lowe said. “The cool weather has slowed them down from growing a little bit.”

Lowe says diversifying your fields is the best bet to thrive right now. A similar story for local farmer Virgil Shockley.

“Corn right now should be about knee high and it’s not it’s usually about twelve to sixteen inches if you look at it,” Shockley said. “It’s about a week behind from where it should be.”

“Soybeans, the last three weeks the temperatures have been below normal obviously, we have had one seventy-five to eighty degree day.”

One crop that has prospered in this weather is hops.

“They kinda like this kind of weather they like the not so hot, they like it a little bit dry, they like to have rain but they like it a little bit dry.”

He says his hops are happy and so are his strawberry plants,
but also feels the pinch from current market prices.

“All that factors into it, cause at the end of the day, you gotta make money or you don’t stay in business.”