From The Hammonton News — Crops here and in many other portions of southern New Jersey were severely damaged during Sunday’s hail and rainstorms.

Dave Rizzotte of Glossy Fruit Farm here was out early Monday to survey the damage the storm caused on his 250-acre farm.

“It’s the worst I’ve seen,” Rizzotte said of the damage. “It’s extensive. Right now, we’re seeing what we can salvage.”

Rizzotte said the hail from the storm, which struck the Hammonton area around noon Sunday, did the most damage to his crops, which include tomatoes, sweet potatoes and blueberries.

“We had gotten our last crop of blueberries in the storage house. We also had our first 10 acres of tomatoes in,” Rizzotte said.

Rutgers Cooperative Extension Atlantic County Agricultural Agent Richard VanVranken toured many of the farms hit by Sunday’s storm, The trip at times made him “sick to his stomach,” he said, because of extent of the damage.

“There are fields of sweet potatoes where it looks like someone went through with a mower and chops the vines to bits as if it was ready for harvest,” VanVranken said Tuesday. “Some of those fields have potatoes sticking out of the ground that are now exposed to the heat and to sunburn.”

VanVranken saw one field of squash and pumpkins heavily damaged.

“There are pumpkins with a quarter inch to half inch holes in them. That’s big,” VanVranken said.

From his tour in the Hammonton area on Monday, VanVranken said much of the severe damage was centered on an area north of the White Horse Pike and to the west of Route 206, with some more damage to the east of Route 206 toward Nesco in Mullica Township, he said.

“It looks like something went through and just mowed everything down. It’s pretty amazing what Mother Nature can do in five to 15 minutes with that kind of hail and winds,” VanVranken said. “For those folks who were relying on those fall crops it’s going to be pretty devastating.”

Department of Agriculture spokesman Jeff Beach said New Jersey Department of Agriculture Secretary Charles M. Kuperus has made a request to the governor’s office for an appeal to be made to the United States Department of Agriculture for relief funds. The request would also include funds for other crop damages caused by drought or prior storms dating back to May.

Area farmers are preparing dollar damage estimates this week, VanVranken said.

The south side of Hammonton wasn’t hit hard sparing the rolling acres of blueberries at Atlantic Blueberry. But smaller blueberry farms as well as some vintners sustained damage at their farms and vineyards, said VanVranken.

“Certainly there will be government programs of some sort, whether it be insurance or the disaster declaration. Every farmer should be contacting a farm service agency because in order to participate in any of those programs they need to be signed up for some sort of insurance program,” he said.

In Gloucester County, Sunday’s storms were hit and miss for farmers, said Beach.

“It’s not like everyone got wiped out but there are certainly ones that seem like they got hit pretty bad,” he said.

Jerry Frecon, an agricultural agent with Rutgers Cooperative Extension in Gloucester County, said he talked to at least one fruit farmer here who reported 100 percent damage.

Areas around Mullica Hill reported some damage, he said, while others like north of Swedesboro didn’t report any.

A hail storm this late in the growing season is unusual and extra costly, Frecon said, as farmers have already heavily invested in their crops only to have them ruined so close to harvest.

“Hail is like leprosy,” he said, explaining that fruit and vegetables physically damaged will be unappealing to customers.

However, VanVranken said while many farms sustained severe damage there are still plenty of crops available.

“They don’t want the market to dry up because all of a sudden they’ve heard New Jersey has been wiped out,” VanVranken said. “They don’t want our wholesale shippers to pass the remaining farmers by.”