RUTLEDGE, Tenn. — We're a few days away from the annual Grainger County Tomato Festival. One Grainger County farmer warns his crop this year, suffered from a storm in May. The storm came through with strong wind, rain, and hail.
When we first spoke with Shane Pierce, a farmer and operator of Pierce Farms, he said 16 of his 27 greenhouses were damaged. And now two months later, he said that number has grown to 18.
Pierce said May's storm damage to his greenhouses hurt his harvest.
"We was able to go back in and pick up the plants that were knocked down. Take them and we just tried to harvest as regular as we possibly could," said Pierce. "There was some, some damage from the storm initially but because of the plastic that was ripped off and the exposure to the weather, it did hurt the harvest."
He said all of his field tomatoes had to be re-planted.
"We had damage, we had to go back and replant our entire field," said Pierce. "That part just pushed us back just probably another week. The aggravation, the labor and, and replanting, pulling up plants, replanting and doing it was just, it was just a lot of work at one time."
Shane said greenhouses and the crops grown in them aren't insured. He said he continued to grow those crops because May's storm was rare.
"Things like this normally do not happen," said Pierce. "We have been in talk and there's other growers besides me that's been talking to lawmakers just for reasons like this."
Shane said he was told that local lawmakers and USDA agents advocated on behalf of him and the other farmers who had damage.
"Mr. Rick Eldridge, he was very cooperative in this and our county mayor was our us, our extension agent, but we just didn't get the backing from the big dogs that we was anticipating," said Pierce.
Although Shane is harvesting tomatoes now, he said the drought and lack of rain still have an impact.
"On my end, a vegetable grower, is the lack of rain because we can still irrigate and we can still try to make sure our plants get some water and get their fertilize," said Pierce. "What is hurting us throughout this drought is we've not been getting, it's been extremely hot every day. And so as far as the irrigating goes, I can't keep up. And so I'm waiting for one field several hours a day, swapping it to another field, several hours a day. So I've just been irrigating basically around the clock for the last two weeks."
While WBIR was at Pierce's farm on Tuesday, it started to rain, which he said was welcomed.
Pierce said he is not a part of the Grainger County Tomato Festival, instead, he sells his tomatoes to grocery stores, including Ingles.