
The ongoing drought is drying up the mowing business for local lawn companies.
Mowing business is down 25% to 30% for two Joplin services. Owners say lawns that are typically mowed once a week are now cut every 14 days, or even once a month if they're not irrigated.
Premier Management's owner says landscaping and installing new lawns luckily got a boost from the tornado's destruction.
R&D Lawn and Landscaping is shifting workers to sod installation to avoid layoffs, but the owner says layoffs might be inevitable.
The drought's even making new lawn work challenging. Crews say it is hard to get grass growing when even the soil they get has a low moisture content at the start.