LONOKE, Ark.-(UACES)--Arkansas winter wheat growers have checked their fields this week in the wake of storms that produced damaging tornadoes and pummeled the state with hail up to the size of softballs.
"The wheat crop is small and very unlikely that wind caused any damage," said Keith Perkins, Lonoke County extension agent for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. "A hail storm could cause damage by reducing stand. However, each field would need to be evaluated on a field-by-field basis."
Neighboring Prairie County received .75 to 1.25 inches of rain, and that brought a halt to work some farmers were doing to get fields ready for spring planting. Some of that work had been on hold in the last month because of a series of heavy rainstorms.
"Farmers were able to get in the field on ground not yet worked," said Prairie County Extension Staff Chair Brent Griffin. "Many were trying to move dirt -- to level the land, and that does not get done unless they lay fields out."
