Despite Storms, Luzerne County Under Drought Watch

Editor’s note:  There are 27 Pennsylvania counties under this watch, including Berks.

Keith Hilliard has been watching the sky from his farm in Sugarloaf Township, hoping for rain.

Hilliard hasn’t seen the weather he’d like so far this spring.

The dry weather helped him plant seeds, but now, “if we don’t get any rain, it will affect those crops pretty quickly,” he said.

Some crops are worth irrigating for Hilliard, president of the Luzerne County Farm Bureau. Others won’t offer enough return on his investment. About 40 percent of his hay crop has already been affected by the dry weather.

“There’s not a whole lot you can do with a lack of rain,” he said.

Read more: http://citizensvoice.com/news/despite-storms-county-under-drought-watch-1.1889261

“Unofficially Summer” Weather To Bake Lancaster County All Week

It’s a good thing swimming pools around Lancaster County have just opened because the week ahead will be unseasonably warm and muggy.

And that’s not good news for area farmers, where a deficit in precipitation around the county is making it hard for newly planted crops to shoot upward.

Nor for the county’s firefighters, who continue to be called out to brush fires.

“Unofficially summer,” is what Eric Horst is calling the unusually hot spell.

Read more:

http://lancasteronline.com/news/local/unofficially-summer-weather-to-bake-lancaster-county-all-week/article_469a42aa-03b6-11e5-a09d-0303b8c296f3.html

Great Year For Gourds: Weather Conditions Favorable For Farmers

Squashes and pumpkins (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

JOHNSTOWN, PA — The search for The Great Pumpkin by cartoon icon Charlie Brown may have come to a rapid conclusion had he had access to this year’s pumpkin field at the Tim Gresh farm near Colver.

The norm this year at Gresh’s farm are pumpkins weighing 50 pounds or more, pumpkins that are being turned into some of the biggest, scariest Jack-o-Lanterns gracing porches and lawns.

With pumpkins 90 percent water, moisture in the 2013 growing season of Cambria and Somerset counties has been abundant enough to meet that high standard, but not too much to foster growth problems, according to growers.

The result is plenty of well-shaped, good-colored, heavy pumpkins, be they for pies or for fun.

Read more: http://tribune-democrat.com/latestnews/x703131127/Great-year-for-gourds-Weather-conditions-favorable-for-farmers