NEAR HOMER, NE (KTIV) -
It's a breeze to pop popcorn these days.
But for farmers, growing it is another story.
That long dry spell we've had, is making it anything but simple.
Making popcorn can be as easy as this.
But for one Jolly Time farmer, hot and dry conditions creates a challenge.
"This is probably the driest we have had for probably maybe 10 or 15 years," said Patrick Green, Jolly Time Grower.
Patrick Green's popcorn field needs rain, but mother nature isn't cooperating.
The way to help the problem, irrigate.
"You get behind irrigation, it's always a catchup game, but we try to keep it watered as much as we can, try to keep this ground saturated for the crops," said Green.
Green's irrigation system rotates in a circle.
It takes 48 hours to pour 1.5 inches of water on his crops.
Valuable time and money.
"It could add maybe 25 to 30% to our input costs this year," said Green.
Green grows 80 acres.
The water reaches 65, meaning 15 go untouched.
"We need the rain in probably another week or week in a half. If we don't at that time, the dry line crop will be probably history. In other words, it will not mature. So we'll have to concentrate mainly on the irrigated crops," said Green.
But no matter if this crop receives that water or not, this is for certain: mother nature still needs to cooperate, something it hasn't done in the past.
"The crop didn't have time to cool down at night. So, we had to concentrate on watering more to get the crop to cool off for it to pollinate and mature again," said Green.
And there's still little prospect of rain, anytime soon.
The difficulty of growing popcorn in hot weather affects more than just its farmers.
The heat could hit budgets too.
Because the corn plants are enduring such high temperatures, it pollinates incorrectly, creating fewer kernels on the plant.
So when supply goes down, prices go up.
Officials at Jolly Time say people like grocers may have to pay more for their popcorn products if this year's conditions don't improve.
Officials say we'll know more in a few weeks.
The good news for us is that we purposefully have a three month carry over at harvest time, so we have a little bit of leeway. But if it's a complete crop disaster and we harvest, you know, less than 50 percent of our needs, then we have some issues," Garry Smith, President of Jolly Time Popcorn, said.
