TOOELE COUNTY, Utah — While it may have felt like we recently had a significant amount of snow, some Utah farmers would disagree.
Jeremy High has been farming and planted his first seed in Tooele 16 years ago.
“As a farmer, literally water is my number one worry,” said High, who owns Kandoo Farms.
High told me that it's been a waiting game this winter.
“January, there’s no snow, you’re like, okay, what’s going on, we need the snow,” he said.
On his market farm, High grows fruit, vegetables, and herbs while conserving as much water as possible.
“That includes drip line, mulch, compost, thick compost, using black tarps to plant in the rafts so that they hold the moisture in,” he shared.
During last week's storm, which saw snow finally accumulate in the valleys, High didn't see much soil impact.
“The pasture is barely three inches down in the last storm," he explained. "I just turned my compost in the back over there: it barely penetrated the top of the compost pile, so it wasn’t enough.”
Kandoo Farms isn't the only one playing the waiting game.
“You don’t control the weather. You don’t control the storms, and yet we 100% rely on the weather,” said Stanford Jensen, owner of Sunnyside Up Pasture.
Jensen said in Centerville, the last storm wasn't much at all:
“If we could have five more storms like the last one that rolled through, then at least we’d be looking at a fairly okay water year," he said.
Jensen expects farmers to face a tough year.
“Hay and alfalfa, you’re looking at probably 85-90% loss this year,” said Jensen.
Safe to say, more storms are what farmers are hoping for.
“Since it’s pretty clear that we’re not going to get a lot of snow," High said, "we need that spring rain."
