"We need rain. It's critical right now," said Roger Kumpel, owner of Greenfield Farms and president of the New Jersey State Board of Agriculture. "Pretty much all of us are affected."
In Pennsylvania, David Fleming, an owner of Shady Brook Farm in Yardley, said "blossoms on the tomatoes drop off because the plants are in a stress mode."
Raspberries and blueberries "melt on the vine when it gets this hot," he said. "Things are browning out. We have been watering 24 hours a day for the last 21/2 weeks."
Heat and lack of precipitation force farmers to spend more money on gasoline to run the motors that pump water into the fields.
"The weather determines the amount of workload," said Joel Roney, manager of Traugers Farm Market in Kintnersville, Bucks County, along the Delaware River. "When it's dry, we spend more time on irrigation.
"We run gas-powered pumps to move the water from the river," he said. "We used 250 gallons [of fuel] last week, and that adds to our expenses."
Some farmers must decide which crops to let die, Roney said.
"A farmer won't irrigate a field crop" of hay or corn for animals, he said. "But he will take care of his peaches because they'll return more."
The sprinklers run from 6 a.m. to about 8 p.m. at Johnson's Corner Farm in Medford.
"We'll take any kind of rain at this point," said Eric Johnson, one of the farm's owners. "This is extreme. We have sprinklers that crawl across the fields real slowly."
So far, "we've been able to keep up and grow high-quality produce," he said. "We have sweet corn, peaches, cantaloupes, and blueberries.
"We're also growing pumpkins for the fall. It's a lot of work to keep them going" in the excessive heat.
Last month was the hottest June on record, said Lynne Richmond, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey Department of Agriculture.
