NJ Farmers Hope Fields Dry Soon

NEWARK, N.J. Too little water can be bad for crops but record rainfalls are dangerous, too. Farmers in New Jersey are hoping for a happy medium in the coming weeks, as they grapple with complications from a snowy winter and the wettest March on record in preparing for the summer planting season.

Bill Sciarappa, an agriculture and resource management agent with Rutgers University, said the next two to four weeks will be crucial in determining the success of this year’s crops.

“This is shaping up as the perfect storm now, between the big snows of February twice as much as normal and twice as much rain in March,” Sciarappa said Tuesday. “If we get the same pattern in April, this will be possibly the worst spring situation most of us have had in the many decades we can remember.”

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