Springs Dry
This past weekend’s rain was extremely important for restoring subsoil moisture and more is needed to recharge our groundwater. The fall of 2025 marked the third consecutive late summer/ autumn drought that has curtailed fall grazing and forced many stockmen to dip into their hay inventories 30 to 60 days earlier than they would have normally. This despite some significant individual rainfall events like Hurricane Helene.
I fielded a call from a local farmer recently who was concerned about our dry weather conditions and his report concerned something I have encountered in other conversations with farmers and landowners these last three autumns: dry springs. These springs have gone dry for the first time in several generations observed by the same family on the same property. Why would this be? Is the drought really that bad?
Here I am going to take the liberty to speculate without benefit of data. As your Extension agent representing your land grant university, I strive to provide science-based information founded in objective data. This is a case where I do not have a data set or study to which I can refer but I have some training from both science and, perhaps more importantly, from local farmers and history.
From the period of European settlement that was largely accomplished in Virginia by 1820 until about 1940, Rockbridge County, along with most Virginia counties, was farmed intensively. Photos from this period show a valley region virtually devoid of trees. From the Great Depression of the 1930s forward to today marked a period when a great deal of marginal land and some good land that had been “farmed to death” was allowed to return to tree cover. Today, the “valley floor” that is traversed by U.S. 11 and Interstate 81 from Roanoke to Winchester has a great deal more tree cover than it did in 1900. I suggest this tree cover likely changes significantly how water moves across and into our soils.
Across the period from the 1930s to today there has been a change in our human demographics and behavior. The population of the valley region of Virginia has grown significantly. Interestingly, the population of Rockbridge in 1930 and 2020 was 20,902 and 22,650 respectively, giving us some hint of how dynamic and vibrant the agricultural economy was leading up to 1930 sufficient to support a significant population. How we access and utilize our water resources is dramatically different. I do not have the data at hand but Rockbridge most certainly has more residential wells, and our capacity to drill wells to depths of several hundred feet today far exceeds what it was in 1900.
Are we currently in a drought? Yes, but not extreme drought. I want to be clear I am not suggesting we cut down all our trees. Trees are good and do good things for us. The point is that our consumption choices and how we manage our land and other natural resources are critical determinants of how we experience drought
