NATCHEZ — The Miss-Lou has gotten a few showers lately, but it needs quite a few more.

“We need a lot more rain to get this last little bit of planting done,” Adams County Extension Service Director David Carter said. “A lot of folks who plant crops don’t have irrigation available.

“They’re at the mercy of the weather.”

And that’s not just the opinion of one man. The U.S. Drought Monitor shows most of Concordia Parish and portions of Adams County to be in what it considers severe drought.

The portions of the Miss-Lou that aren’t considered to be in severe drought are considered to be in moderate drought.

Crops affected by the drought also include fruits like apples and pears.

“They’re 90 percent water, and the water has to make it all the way through the roots, up the trunk and down the branches before it reaches them,” Carter said. “That can seriously affect their quality.

While the drought may be most obvious in crop production, it’s also a problem for livestock producers.

“If you have a cattle or horse production on grass, it doesn’t take them long to eat a crop down,” Carter said. “The problem is that with the drought the grass isn’t growing back.”

That same problem hampers plans for winter feeding.

“I’ve only cut hay once this year,” Carter said. “Last year I had done that three times by this point.”

But the area is still far from completely dried out.

“In some of the lower areas, like Anna’s Bottom, there is enough moisture in the ground water system to keep things going along fine,” Carter said.

A dry year here or there is something farmers have to expect, he said.

“There have been worse years and there have been better years,” Carter said. “I don’t think anyone has lost a total crop.”