Coastal Empire drought has Georgia farmers worried about spring planting

EVANS COUNTY, Ga. (WTOC) - A drought across Georgia’s Coastal Empire has farmers watching the forecast closely as spring planting ramps up.

At Anderson Farms, Wednesday marked the start of corn planting season. Farmer Avant Anderson was up early getting seed in the ground — but he said the bigger concern isn’t the corn going in now.

During a quick break to refuel his tractor, Anderson said many growers are focused on what comes next: cotton and peanuts.

“We still got about a month before we get into cotton and peanuts so everybody’s kinda just hoping we can get this thing turned around before then,” Anderson said. “If we start getting some rain by mid April and on we’ll be fine.”

After checking in with the First Alert Weather team, the outlook for immediate relief doesn’t appear promising.

The U.S. is classifying drought conditions in parts of Georgia as extreme — and Anderson said the lack of rain could force some farms to delay or even forgo planting certain crops.

“If nothing changes until mid April-late April, there really won’t be any reason to plant because it’s just sitting in dry dirt,” he said.

Anderson, who has worked full-time at the farm for the past couple of years but has spent many spring seasons around Georgia agriculture, said he can’t remember conditions being this dry.

“I can’t remember any time where our ponds have been this dry and we haven’t been able to plant,” Anderson said.

Georgia is down 6.3 inches of rain over the last three months. If that trend continues, farmers say the impacts could extend beyond cotton and peanuts.

Corn planting at Anderson Farms continued Wednesday, but growers across the region say they’ll be counting on meaningful rainfall in the coming weeks.