Farm Progress

A recent trek from east Tennessee to the High Plains of Texas, with stops in Oklahoma and Arkansas, offered a sampling of springtime in the Sunbelt, including dust devils, thunder storms, 90-degree temperatures and frigid mornings

Ron Smith 1, Senior Content Director

April 18, 2017

23 Slides

Spring is one of my four favorite seasons. From the first tentative crocus shoots that pop out of the cold, sometimes snow-covered soil, to the first fledgling birds flapping uncoordinated wings to be airborne, spring offers the promise of renewal.

Farmers are planting or preparing to plant summer crops, making plans to harvest winter wheat and keeping an eye on newborn calves gamboling across pastures.

A recent trek from east Tennessee to the High Plains of Texas, with stops in Oklahoma and Arkansas, offered a sampling of springtime in the Sunbelt, including dust devils, thunder storms, 90-degree temperatures and frigid mornings.

Corn and grain sorghum seedlings are out of the ground in East Texas, and the state’s favorite flower, bluebonnets are fading fast. Wheat fields are headed out and just beginning to turn. Tractors on the Texas Plains are stirring up dust as they prepare cotton ground, and folks in Arkansas and Tennessee are waiting for a dry spell to get things rolling.

And things are blooming. Here are a few photos I shot during the recent road trip and some I’ve collected over the past few weeks. It is springtime in the Southland.

About the Author(s)

Ron Smith 1

Senior Content Director, Farm Press/Farm Progress

Ron Smith has spent more than 40 years covering Sunbelt agriculture. Ron began his career in agricultural journalism as an Experiment Station and Extension editor at Clemson University, where he earned a Masters Degree in English in 1975. He served as associate editor for Southeast Farm Press from 1978 through 1989. In 1990, Smith helped launch Southern Turf Management Magazine and served as editor. He also helped launch two other regional Turf and Landscape publications and launched and edited Florida Grove and Vegetable Management for the Farm Press Group. Within two years of launch, the turf magazines were well-respected, award-winning publications. Ron has received numerous awards for writing and photography in both agriculture and landscape journalism. He is past president of The Turf and Ornamental Communicators Association and was chosen as the first media representative to the University of Georgia College of Agriculture Advisory Board. He was named Communicator of the Year for the Metropolitan Atlanta Agricultural Communicators Association. More recently, he was awarded the Norman Borlaug Lifetime Achievement Award by the Texas Plant Protection Association. Smith also worked in public relations, specializing in media relations for agricultural companies. Ron lives with his wife Pat in Johnson City, Tenn. They have two grown children, Stacey and Nick, and three grandsons, Aaron, Hunter and Walker.

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