Fewer tobacco growers planning summer crop in Horry County

(myrtlebeachonline.com) With the first day of Spring nearly two weeks away, area tobacco farmers are praying for more rain to produce a good crop in 2012 after a devastating growing season last year.
But growers are leery of Mother Nature’s intentions to withhold precious rainfall this year, so some are installing costly irrigation systems or reducing the acreage they’re planting.
“It’s still dry. I hope we get a good season. We’ve had a bad one,” said William Johnson, who cultivates about 400 acres of tobacco along with hundreds of acres of corn, soybeans wheat and peanuts on his family’s farm between Conway and Aynor. Continued