Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 21, 1995                   TAG: 9504210091
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: METRO STEPHANIE 
SOURCE: ANN DONAHUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WHERE ARE APRIL'S SHOWERS?

The perfect beach weather the past week in the Roanoke Valley has been perfectly awful for growers.

Although there is a 50 percent chance of rain today and more rain expected over the weekend, it may too little, too late for farmers.

Gordon Groover, an extension economist at Virginia Tech, said the area needs a good week of soaking rain to prevent irreversible damage.

"It's going to blow us out of work if it doesn't rain soon," said Billy Johnson, a wheat and hay farmer near Moneta.

Johnson, who farms 500 acres, said he has lost almost 75 percent of his crop. "Things just aren't growing," he said.

"It's going to put a lot of farmers out of business," Johnson said. He also runs a trucking business and, without that, "we'd be closed up," he said.

Johnson's hay, which was shoulder-high this time two years ago, looks like yard grass. He said his crops weren't even green until the sprinkling of rain the area got last week. His wheat also is suffering. "It's a total wipeout," he said.

The Roanoke Valley received its last significant rainfall more than a month ago, on March 8, when 0.82 inches fell. According to National Weather Service meteorologist Pete Snyder, the month of April could break records.

"Right now, we're looking at potentially the driest April we've had since Roanoke started keeping records in 1912," Snyder said.

The driest April on record was in 1942, with 0.37 inches of rain. So far this month, only 0.29 inches has soaked Roanoke's crops.

Touches of brown and yellow on the wheat show it is diseased. Johnson said there has not been enough water to activate the protective chemicals he sprays on the plants.

He already has cut his rye, and found no grain in the heads. Wispy piles of it are spread over his field. "If it was like normal, it would be heaped up," he said.

"It's done - I may be done, too," he said with a grim laugh.

Johnson said the small amount of growth he has so far is because he fertilized heavily last season. "We're putting out the money in the fertilizer and nothing comes back," he said.

Wheat farmers are paid for their crop only once a year.

Johnson said his farm has survived past years that were this dry, but "for every one good year, you're going to have two bad."

He worried there will be no animal feed if dry weather keeps up and growth doesn't start. The hay supply last year wasn't very good, so all the reserves for this year already have been used up.

In a drought, a plant's growth slows and eventually stops, said Dale Wolf, a professor of agronomy at Virginia Tech. Growth will be stunted because the plant's food manufacturing process shuts down. Sugars accumulate in the leaves of plants in the early stages of a drought, which may be why insects are attracted to them. Johnson, for example, said aphids have been eating his alfalfa.

Suppliers for home gardeners also may face difficulties. Meg Cook, manager of Belle Aire Garden Shoppe on Brandon Avenue Southwest in Roanoke, said "people have not called in for landscape work," and is worried they may not plant this spring.

Cook said people are concerned about having to water their lawns and gardens through the dry spring as well as during the summer.

On the other hand, customers have an unusually early interest in pond plants. Cook said that typically doesn't happen until the peak of summer when weather is the warmest.

Cook recommends watering gardens in the morning so fungus doesn't set in. She also said it is better to water slowly and deeply once a week than to sprinkle the soil surface frequently.

David Adams, water operations foreman for Roanoke County, confirmed that water consumption is up. It's usually high this time of year, when people begin watering their plants, but the drought has made it worse, he said.

At Cindy's Greenery, employees are "running around like chickens with our heads cut off" in order to prevent plants - especially begonias and impatiens, which are just starting to grow - from drying out, said horticulturist Mary Sue Lane.

"Four of us are working nonstop," Lane said. "We just can't get to them fast enough."

Lane also advised home gardeners to water all plants very thoroughly, not just the ones planted this season. "Don't stand there with a beer in one hand and a hose in the other," she said. "Soak it."