The relatively dry weather forecast this week was exactly what sugar cane farmers needed, The Courier reports.
Herman Waguespack, a senior agronomist with the Thibodaux-based American Sugar Cane League, says the planting season has been “very rough” because of the unusually wet weather.
With the harvest season is beginning now, farms have multiple years of crop growing at once, but most don’t have the manpower or equipment to both plant and harvest at the same time.
“We would normally be finished with the planting process with the harvest season right around the corner,” says Waguespack, adding that roughly 70% of the planting process is probably completed statewide.
Thibodaux and Lafourche are the farthest behind, he says, as farmers have only completed about 15% to 20% of the planting process.
Mark Naquin, who owns a farming machine company and farms sugar cane in Thibodaux, is one of those farmers. Naquin says he is about a quarter of the way through planting.
“If the rain continues and we don’t plant 100% of the acreage, it means we have less for next season,” Naquin says. “We missed our early planting.”
Early planting has higher yields and higher sugar content, he says.
