Just like folks who wish for rain or look for irrigation during dry times, growers experiencing more than optimal rainfall look for ways to handle soggy conditions.
Rain is obviously good but too much of it can be a huge headache or worse. While rainfall in some areas has been just about right in recent weeks, rainfall in other pockets of Ohio vegetable production has become troublesome lately.
Open field growers can prepare only so much for excess rain, especially when it falls in large amounts over short periods of time. However, predictions indicate that doing what is possible to prepare for deluges will be useful. Five steps familiar to most experienced growers because they always support positive production outcomes – not just during wet periods or seasons — can help.
1. Use a set of varieties ranging in maturity and seed/transplant multiple times (stagger plantings). This helps manage workloads, blanket market opportunities, and distribute risk since individual plantings will be at different stages in development when dry, wet, or other unwelcome conditions occur and, therefore, possibly be less affected by them.
2. Select naturally well-draining fields whenever possible. Fields that tend to hold moisture may be a blessing during dry periods but a problem during wetter ones. Assuming irrigation is available, naturally well-draining fields are likely to be more reliable across seasons.
3. Improve and maintain the site’s drainage, i.e., its capacity to withstand and “process” excess rain. Grade, tile, and employ rotations and soil management and production practices proven to limit the site’s potential to flood and for saturated conditions to persist.
4. Use appropriate crop-specific tactics to manage beds or hills from the start of each production cycle. Potato, Cucurbit, and other crops are often in direct contact with the soil. So, they can benefit from hills and beds being set and managed as if flooding is a real possibility.
5. Prepare for harvest in advance. Advanced preparation can help ensure it will be possible to harvest sooner than expected, if possible and needed.