Warm weather lets farmers get early start

A cold rain splashed on some East End farm fields Wednesday, but the showers were hit and miss -- passing quickly and leaving puddles in some places while quickly soaking into the soil in others.

The record warm weather this month has allowed some farmers to get a big jump on their growing season, but the mild temperatures come with a price: They have increased farmers' operating costs and led to worries that a potential hard frost will doom the blossoms on fruit trees.

"Some of the guys are already doing plowing and field work," said Joseph M. Gergela III, executive director of the Long Island Farm Bureau in Calverton. "The soil is in great shape, but it's risky . . . there was a little scare the other night with the fruit trees because of early blossoming. You don't want to see a hard freeze."

The warmth has also meant this month has been particularly dry, Gergela added. That means irrigation pumps were kept running, adding to the cost of raising the early cabbage, squash and lettuce now growing in local fields.

"We could really use a good rain," said Jamesport farmer George Gabrielsen, who grows corn, cucumbers and lettuce, among other crops.

Helped by temperatures that hit 73 degrees last week, the month is well on its way to being the warmest March on record, meteorologists said. The National Weather Service said four days this month broke Islip records since data began getting kept in 1984.

John Murray, a meteorologist for the weather service, said that up to March 27, the average temperature measured at Islip was 47.5 degrees, 8.8 degrees above normal and significantly higher than the previous average record temperature of 45.1 degrees set in 2010.

The warm temperatures have Gabrielsen, who also serves on the Riverhead Town Board, plowing and planting corn and moving pansies and tulips out of his greenhouses.

"Fuel prices are going through the roof," he said. "On the whole, we're happy. It [the weather] is really a boost for us."

The warm weather is having another positive effect on some East End farms -- the roadside farm stands are starting to open weeks before their traditional start around Mother's Day.

Gabrielsen's farm stand was open recently and his flats of flowers were out. And, down the road, Bayview Farms in Aquebogue was also selling flats of flowers, along with some very nonlocal crops -- grapefruit, kiwis and avocados.