By Steven Ginsberg
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 29, 1998; Page M03

The dry season, now stretching on since last spring, continues to cripple Southern Maryland farming operations.

Following one of the most arid summers and slimmest fall harvests in recent memory, winter crops are now endangered because of the lack of significant rainfall in the region. The drought has severely retarded the growth of crops already in the ground and has caused many farmers to cut the number of acres they normally plant in winter grains.

"I've had to stop planting," said Tommy Bowles, a farmer in St. Mary's County who put in 800 acres of winter wheat, 200 shy of his goal. "It's too dry. . . . It looks bad right now. We need some moisture very, very soon."

Farmers' frustration has been aggravated, Bowles said, because the unseasonably mild temperatures in recent weeks would be perfect for growing winter grains, if only they were accompanied by rain.

"Once the land starts freezing, the wheat stops growing," he said. "If we had moisture now, it would be perfect."

Farmers did get some welcome rain Wednesday and Thursday, but there has been so little rain over the past few months that state officials estimate that only 15 percent of Maryland farmland is adequate for planting.

Ray Garibay, state statistician for the Department of Agriculture, depicted the soil as "powder dry."

"We're concerned about the wheat going into the winter season," he said. "As it gets into the colder days, we won't see any growth if it doesn't rain. We could see some winter kill because it's in such poor condition now."

Farmers won't know until the spring harvest whether they are going to be hit with big losses from the winter crops, Garibay said.

Low market prices, which have dogged farmers for months, also are influencing winter planting decisions; many farmers have opted to skip the winter season altogether.

"I didn't plant any winter crop for the first time because of the prices," said Eddie Bowling, a farmer in Charles County and executive director of the county Farm Service Agency. "A lot of guys I've talked to reduced their plantings due to prices and because there's no rain."

Prices have been dropping steadily over the past year because of markedly reduced export demand and a bumper Midwestern crop. At the beginning of the year, wheat prices were $3.30 per bushel, but by midsummer that figure bottomed out at $2.50 and stood slightly higher at $2.78 last week.

In addition to cutting revenue, skipping the winter season disrupts farmers' rotation schedules, especially for those who planned to follow winter wheat with a spring planting of soybeans in the same fields, Bowling said.

While most Southern Maryland farmers are struggling to deal with the dry weather, a few lucky growers received enough rain to get in a full planting.

"We started the first of October and ended about the 25th," said Steve Reeves, who planted 150 acres in Chaptico. "It's coming up now, but what's going to predominate is how much rain we're going to get. If the weather and markets are good, we'll be okay, but there's no indication either one's going to help us."

The weather affects more than just farmers' finances. Another consequence of the dry summer and fall is that many farmers are suffering psychologically, Bowling said. "I think everyone is kind of down because the lack of moisture," he said. "Everyone's wondering when it's going to rain."

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