The relentless summer of heat on the tea farm
Drought has hit our Mississippi tea farm. The hot and dry weather has been relentless. We have had 11 days above 100F and not had measurable rain since July 1st. We have had 63 days above 90F this summer. In other words, it has been hot and dry and now to the point of brutal and dangerous. Tea grows between 50F and 100F. It is also a poor conductor of water through the bush. We are currently running the irrigation over 7.5 acres of land on a daily basis. We pumped 655,200 gallons of water onto the crop last week. We are also watering at night to help evaporation stay to a minimum but with night time temps in the...