Drought and Sunflowers

It is no big secret that Texas is in a hard drought; Brazoria County is in the extreme level.  The cracks in the ground at the farm are big enough to hide a small child in. So I need to prepare and educate you for what happens to Sunflowers trying to grow in a drought. Sunflowers, while they don’t require as much water as say corn, still need water. We planted the Sunflowers back in March when there was a little moisture in the ground, and a decent promise of rain on the way. We are still waiting on that rain. The ground was moist enough for the seeds to sprout and begin to grow. However, like all plants, when they are not getting enough water they grow very slowly. Sunflowers go into a reserve mode to conserve energy and survive. So in order to produce, Sunflowers will stop growing tall and begin to make the seed head. When the seed head is formed they will begin to bloom. Normally it takes Sunflowers 90 days from the time they are planted to when they begin to bloom/produce. The drought has sped up the sunflowers a little and they will not have the tall full stems that we had last year with sunflowers that were 8-9  ft tall. The heads were so big last year that my vases wanted nothing more than to fall over and we had to weigh them down with rocks. This year’s flowers are smaller, yet just as beautiful and I can get twice as many in same vase as I could last year. The good news is “God is Good” and we do have Sunflowers.  We have cut the price of picking Sunflowers and there should be more than enough for everybody.