Hardly a drop of rain has fallen in the past period. This puts the horticulturists in our province in trouble. A good shower would be welcome to allow the crops to germinate and grow. Without rain, the harvest will partially fail. The result is less harvest and higher food prices. But that welcome rain shower will have to wait for a while.
Gardener Janus Scheepers from Heeze looks out over his land. He hits the ground with his foot. A cloud of dry sand blows up. “The soil is very dry. The crops are coming up now. The drought makes it difficult for some plants to grow or germinate well. It should rain now so that the topsoil gets wet and the plants can grow much more easily.”
“It will rain little or not at all in the coming weeks.”
There will be little or no rain for the next two weeks, Alfred Snoek expects. According to the weatherman of Weerplaza, there will probably be a shower, but: “That will be very local and in small quantities.” Pike also foresees higher temperatures in the coming weeks. “As temperatures rise, evaporation will increase. The moisture that falls will evaporate quickly.”
The precipitation deficit has been recorded in the Netherlands since 1906, with 1976 as the driest year to date. This year is expected to approach the record year.
“For the same money, May and June will be wet months.”
“It was also very dry in 2018 and 2019,” says Scheepers. “What we learned in that period is that we have to irrigate the fields a little bit. So that the top layer gets wet and that contributes to the growth of the plants.”
As an example, Scheepers shows a piece of land in the field. The plants there are different in length. He also shows seeds that have not germinated. “With rain, this would have been much more even. We still have sufficient groundwater in the stream valley. However, the grain has difficulty germinating. Despite the fact that we have sown more, the yield seems to be less. That also means higher food prices.”
The Aa en Maas water board receives many questions from farmers about the drought and the groundwater level. The water board says it is concerned about the falling groundwater level. “There are no real problems yet,” according to the water board. “But we got off to a bad start. But will it stay that way? For the same money, May and June will be wet months. And there will soon be no more drought,” according to the water board.