By TIM THORNBERRY
Kentucky Correspondent

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Last year at this time, farmers and gardeners were waiting for a break in the spring rains to get their crops planted. This year is just the opposite as unusually warm and dry weather has created a large deficit in the amount of moisture normally received at this point.

That deficit has led University of Kentucky (UK) College of Agriculture experts to warn producers that watering may become necessary sooner rather than later.

“It’s time to think about watering shallow-rooted plants like blueberries, strawberries, blackberries and raspberries,” said John Strang, UK Extension Horticulture Specialist. “Things are especially getting dry in Eastern and Central Kentucky.”

Strang also said that vegetable garden growers will likely have to water their plots now to get them off to a good start to get seeds germinated and to give plants that are already up a little extra water, as well. Pastures are also in need of a little water
“Lettuce needs water now,” Strang said. “If you have any shallow-planted seedlings, they’ll need extra water to germinate. Right now, (the lack of rainfall) is a nuisance. It could become critical quickly. The problem is we’re starting out the season really dry and that reflects on later in the season if we don’t have moisture. Typically, we start out with soil moisture levels pretty well charged up and we can run for a while on that, but we just don’t have a lot of reserves right now.”

Information from UK notes that as of the second week in April, it marked the fifth-straight week of above normal temperatures, and the 12th week this year with below normal precipitation.
UK meteorologist Tom Priddy said this dry weather pattern has been around sometime and could last.

“We actually started receiving below normal precipitation last November for the state as a whole,” he said.

Priddy also said that even with the above-normal snowfall last winter, the snowfall-to-liquid rain ratio was higher due to the cold temperatures experienced. That basically means the snow did not create as much soil moisture as it normally would have.
Even with the dry conditions, Priddy said there is still moisture in the soil.

“I believe that even though we are starting to see some anomalies build up in the drinking water situation and the agricultural situation, there is still some deep moisture there, but our shallow-rooted crops can’t get to it so it doesn’t do much good. We need a frequency of rain to return to kick off the growing season once we get all the seed in the ground.”

Whether that happens is up to Mother Nature, but the long range forecasts show at least the potential for a continued dry season.
Priddy said more and more computer models are continuing to show the El Niño weather pattern going away with the possibility of a La Niña pattern taking its place. What that means is the conditions would be right, should that occurrence take place, to have drier than normal conditions over the summer.

Priddy reported last month that a similar phenomenon occurred in 1998, resulting in a summer drought.

“I’m not forecasting a summer drought,” he said. “I am saying that some weather models are indicating that the current strong El Niño pattern will quickly turn to La Niña, and it will definitely affect our weather in Kentucky and the Ohio Valley. Let me be clear. No one is predicting a drought this summer, but if La Niña returns after this El Niño, Kentucky will not experience optimum growing conditions.”
While the threats from dry conditions grows, including increased potential for forest fires, UK Consumer Horticulturalist Richard Durham said home landscapes aren’t showing the effects just yet.
“Things have been progressing fairly normally at least around Lexington, I don’t see any problems with grass greening up or wilting,” he said. “However, the next few weeks are critical for folks who are transplanting annual and perennial flowers and who will be planting seed and vegetable transplants. Surface soil moisture is going to be scarce without any additional rains, so people will need to be especially careful to keep flower and vegetable transplants watered after transplanting.”

Durham also said checking every few days to make sure the soil is moist – not wet – around the newly planted transplants should do the trick and plants should be watered enough to wet the soil down to a depth of five to six inches.