Growing drought impacts crops across North Carolina WSOC TV [Video]

IREDELL COUNTY, N.C. — Despite some rain Thursday, a drought is creeping across the state, and corn growers in the Piedmont worry much of their crops won’t make it to harvest.

Andy Gray, who operates Grayhouse Farms with his family in northern Iredell County, said his fields already faced one weather-related setback in the spring.

“Early May, it rained so much that the corn seed rotted in the ground,” he said. “I had to replant the whole field and then, drought.”

That was back when the area was having one of its wettest Mays on record, then suddenly Gray said his fields went three weeks without any rain at all. Then came this week’s heat wave and things started to dry out even faster.

“It’s been a tough go definitely for the corn crop and the soybean crop,” he said.

This time of year he’d expect the corn to be about eight or nine feet tall. His tallest crops are about half that size.

…