WILLARD, Utah (ABC 4 News) – Rain and hail is giving Northern Utah farmers heartburn.
In some places, sweet cherries have lost their luster.
Sunday, long time farmer Gay Pettingill looked to the skies and knew it was trouble.
"I seen the dark cloud coming and there was light behind and I said that's hail," said Pettingill who farms near Willard.
Days of rain and topped with a ten minute hail storm have nearly destroyed all his cherry and peach orchards.
"We have so much rain now when it rains this time there was no place for the water to go because the ground was so saturated,” he said. “So as soon as the rain came down the water went down the hill.”
And it nearly washed away his watermelons, cantaloupe, pepper and tomato plants.
"The sweet cherries you can see how much damage there is,” he said. “But on the row crops, we’ve spent a lot of money to cover them we’ll have to see if we can save the row crops."
He said damage to his cherries is around $35,000. And by week-end he should know more about his other crops.
"We won't know damage on the peaches until after a few days,” he said. “If it’s hammered hard it will probably come out with some gum.
He says other growers in the Willard area met the same fate.
Pettingill still has crops in the Perry area to offset these losses.
He just hopes Mother Nature will leave him something by harvest time.
"I don't know how to stop it,” he said. “I've tried. I talked to the guys upstairs but he didn't listen."
