Nestled in Bedford County you can find the Turner Dairy Farm.

Farming for four generations, and the last dairy farm in the county, Wayne Turner said they mostly rely on dairy and corn crops for profits.

Those profits are going to take a big hit because of the drought that has affected the farm.

"It's going to hurt our wallets at the end of the year because that's our main feed for our cattle and we depend on high-quality feed to get the milk out of our cows," Turner said.

Nick Fillo, a hydrologist, with the National Weather Service, tells me droughts have the biggest impact on farmers.

“A lot of the crop reports and the agricultural folks we have talked to have said that crop growth has been hit pretty hard this year," Fillo said.

Turner said they have not seen a drought like this since the 60s. He estimated that two-thirds of his corn has been burnt up and will not be able to be used this year.

For us, the hardest hit has been our corn crop," Turner said. "We start planting that in April and we have not really had any significant rain on that crop since mid-May.

As for his cows, there are a couple of key things he uses to keep them cool.

We keep fresh water and give clean water to them 24/7, with multiple watering troughs throughout the facility," Turner said. "I have 30 some fans running in my free stall barns 24/7 in this kind of weather.

Turner keeps about 150 of his dairy cows in the barn at a time. He also has a blue chip, on their ears, to monitor their health conditions.

"That allows me to tell when my cows are panting when they are backing off the feed and rumination times for them. It helps me to know when I need to put feed out for my cows and try to manage heat stress as much as I can for the cows," Turner said.

Fillo said they are expecting more rain this month. Typically this rainfall comes from tropical storms and sporadic thunderstorms.

"Fortunately we are looking to get a little more rain in July in which case we can hopefully see conditions improve across the state," Fillo said.

Source - https://wset.com