Farmers fear for calamitous year

The dry and wicked heat wave across South Carolina is squeezing the life out of crops, and farmers worry that 2016 could be calamitous.  Oconee, Anderson and Pickens are in the unenviable role of “ground zero.”  But, according to Clemson University, the same conditions plaguing South Carolina’s northwest corner have leapfrogged into the center of the state.  Last year a sledgehammer of heat and drought followed by a deluge of record rain devastated thousands of acres of crops and left many of the state’s farmers with shattered hopes and empty wallets.  Across the Upstate, hundreds of acres of dryland corn that looked fabulous three or four weeks ago have burned up, and nearly all corn acreage has seen significant reductions in yield.