Emily Kenny at Spectrum News talks to some New York farmers about the impact of the lingering smoke in the air on crops. Kara Atwood, a farmer at Kubecka Farms in Kirkville, complained about the lack of rain lately and said of the smoke, “It is reducing plant growth from a slow crawl to a complete standstill.... This is almost like a one-two punch to early crops.” Justine Vanden Heuvel, who studies grapes and is a professor in the horticulture department at Cornell University, said, “The big worry in situations like this is smoke taint, which is basically when certain compounds are absorbed by the skin of the grape and then they’re released at fermentation.... It results in wines that taste burnt or smokey or ashy.” But right now grapes are in a flowering stage, and Vanden Heuvel said,,“To our knowledge, flowers don’t absorb those aromas, so there is no reason to think it would impact the grapes.” The larger problem on farms now, she said, is that people need to do all sorts of work outdoors on farms right now, and it is dangerous to breathe the air outside right now. Read more about this story at Spectrum News.