THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION WAS UPDATED ON 8\/31\/11.\u00a0 NOTE CORRECTED VERSION BELOW – NO CHICKENS DIED IN MARYLAND AS A RESULT OF HURRICANE IRENE. In a statement issued August 30, reporting preliminary damage assessment, MDA incorrectly stated there were poultry deaths in Maryland. \u00a0Maryland did not have any chicken deaths due to Hurricane Irene. \u00a0Delaware did experience poultry mortality as a result of the storm. \u00a0Please contact the Delaware Department of Agriculture for more details. \u00a0MDA should be able to provide a more detailed assessment of storm-related damages by the end of next week.<\/p>\n
ANNAPOLIS, MD (August 30, 2011) \u2013 Agriculture Secretary Buddy Hance today issued the following statement outlining preliminary damage assessment from Maryland\u2019s agriculture community resulting from Hurricane Irene.<\/p>\n
\u201cHigh winds and excessive rain caused loss of power, flooding, and tree and limb damage across most of the state. Southern Maryland and the Lower Eastern Shore, however, sustained most of the damage, primarily on drought-stricken corn fields where wind flattened the crop in many places, making it difficult to harvest.\u00a0 The remaining sweet corn was severely blown over and may not be recoverable, but we believe this will impact a small amount as most has been harvested.<\/p>\n
\u201cOverall Maryland livestock fared well with no significant loss or structural damage. Soybeans fared well and the moisture will help the crop.\u00a0 About 100 acres of watermelon were destroyed and another 100 acres sustained damage severe enough to be reported as a loss. About 600 acres of string beans may be unharvestable.\u00a0 There was no impact from the storm west of Frederick.<\/p>\n
\u201cUSDA\u2019s Farm Service Agency will further assess damages to agriculture \u2013 crops, livestock, conservation \u2013 and we should have a better indication of those estimates later this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cFarmers who experienced hurricane damage are reminded to stay in close contact with their crop insurance agents. A written notice of crop loss must be given to your crop insurance agent: within 72 hours of discovering the damage or loss; 15 days before harvesting begins; within 15 days after harvesting is completes but not later than October 20 for corn insured as tonnage for silage; and December 10 for grain corn and soybeans. Maryland farmers have 6,458 crop insurance policies in place, covering crops valued at $390.5 million.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Follow MDA on Twitter @MdAgDept<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION WAS UPDATED ON 8\/31\/11.\u00a0 NOTE CORRECTED VERSION BELOW – NO CHICKENS DIED IN MARYLAND AS A RESULT OF HURRICANE IRENE. In a statement issued August 30, reporting preliminary damage assessment, MDA incorrectly stated there were poultry deaths in Maryland. \u00a0Maryland did not have any chicken deaths due to Hurricane Irene. \u00a0Delaware did Read the Rest…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[155],"class_list":["post-662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-release","tag-hurricane-irene"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":663,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662\/revisions\/663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}