TYLER, Texas — The heavy rainfall East Texas received this week seemingly caused problems for everyone, including local farmers.
"You want good rain for your farming, everyone knows that’s essential, rain and sunshine," said Bluebird Farmstand owner, BW Ferris.
It's the perfect recipe for the perfect harvest, but the consistent downpour East Texas saw this week could have done more harm than good for local farmers.
"You don’t want to have too much problems with your phosphorus, you can end up with an issue there, or you nitrogen, and it can just leach and cause problems and erosion," Ferris said.
Ferris also said that early-season crops like onions and tomatoes, which are often planted in February or March, would be impacted the most. But thankfully, we’re not quite at the point where most East Texas farmers are sowing their crops yet.
"Our ideal planting season for East Texas is typically right around tax day, that’s a good way to remember it, cause then we’re not subject to that last freeze that we always end up with. So you want to look for somewhere around April 15th to plant. So I think a lot of farmers are going to be okay, but there are those early birds that put crops in, and they’re the ones that took the risk," Ferris said.
The heavy rain this week had a negative impact on schools, first responders, famers and others. But, all that rain followed by all this sunshine, does leave some room for positive developments to come in the future.
"And that is that it did moisten the ground, and that gives us some deep saturation that we can use for these roots that are just starting out, as they climb down and start taking off. And so that’s going to be one of the biggest benefits of the rain," Ferris said.
It’s not all doom and gloom. The saturated ground will help crops planted this weekend to really sow their roots, and for the areas that have collected too much water and are too saturated, we’ve got some heavy winds coming this weekend that could blow those troubles away.
"I heard the weather forecast, it was stating that that’s drying up the ground a little bit. And so the more that water moves off, then it can access those areas until, and get their crops, ya know put in, and sow their crops," Ferris said.