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Farmers face off with the dry, hot weather

Todd Bone is in the process of harvesting wheat and putting cotton in the ground. He says the hot and dry weather lately has been both a blessing and a curse.

Todd Bone and his crew work from sunup until sundown. "We got started at 7 this morning, and we will go until about 8, 8:30, 9," Bone said.

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Bone owns Bone Farms in Taylor County where he is finishing up harvesting wheat and beginning to plant cotton. 

The hot, dry weather Central Georgia continues to bring, Bone says, has been great for harvesting wheat. "You want the dry weather -- the heat dries the kernel out, gets the moisture out of it."

However, this dry spell isn't helping when it comes to trying to get more wheat and cotton in the ground. "We are probably gonna have to stop planting, we have a little bit of moisture in some of the fields, though," Bone said.

The drought monitor shows all of Central Georgia is abnormally dry, with some spots in elevated to a moderate drought.

The National Weather Service predicts with all the heat and little rain expected in the coming week, these conditions will become worse and more widespread.

Bone says this is a concern for farmers like him trying to revive the cotton crop. "Last year with the storm, we certainly don’t need the dry weather, we need a big crop this year. The last couple of weeks have been tough."

But Bone stays hopeful, glad to see a bountiful wheat harvest. "We’re still mighty fortunate at making a good crop," Bone said, while waiting for our dry spell to come to a close.

"We need the rain," Bone said, hoping it will give the cotton crop the comeback it needs. 

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According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Georgia’s topsoil that is considered either dry or very dry went up from 21% last week to 40% this week.

We have also seen a rain deficit when it comes to monthly averages since February.

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