Floridians utilize more than nine billion acres across the state for farming, creating an eight billion dollar industry. With the planting season getting under way, drivers should expect to share the road with more farming equipment.
Late February and early March mark the start of the planting season for corn, cotton, and peanuts in the Southeast as well as the tail end of the sugar cane and potatoes planting cycle. All of this means tractors, tillers, and irrigators will have to travel from farm to farm using highways and surface streets. Stephen Fulford, a cotton, soybean, and peanut farmer from Jefferson County, said drivers need to exercise patience while sharing the road.
“The biggest hazard is just if someone gets impatient and they try to get around the piece of equipment at the wrong time, you know, broken lines and solid lines in the middle of the road tend to not mean anything to some people,” Fulford said.
Fulford says planting equipment can be anywhere from 12 to 14 feet wide. The statewide planting season in some of Florida’s more than 47,000 farms lasts until about the beginning or end of June.
For more information from Steven Rodriguez, follow @StevenRFS on twitter.