Area Farmers Assessing Damage To Crops From This Past Weekend’s Severe Weather
Area Farmers Assessing Damage To Crops From This Past Weekend’s Severe Weather
June 01, 2022Steve Schwaller
(Lakefield, Mn.)– Farmers in areas hard hit by this past weekend’s severe weather are continuing to assess damages. Jim Nesseth of Extended Ag Services in Lakefield tells KUOO news it’s fairly widespread, but he says areas a little further to the west and north really took the brunt of it…
“You know we had a tornado touch down over in the Adrian, Ellsworth area. We have some customers over there that lost some buildings and some pretty severe damage to buildings, but not a lot of livestock lost, so that was really good news, there.”
Locally, Nesseth says most of the damage to crops was caused by hail. He says the corn should be okay as the growing point is still below ground. But he says it’s different for soybeans. He says it’s likely some of those fields will have to be re-planted…
“Right now it’s just a matter of trying to get these fields to dry up a little bit so we can go out there and really evaluate and then we can just see what that stand count is and how much damage we’ve got and what’s actively still growing yet. The growing point with soybeans is above ground and so that’s why it’s more vulnerable than corn. But soybeans can be pretty resilient. The can compensate for lower stands and so what we’ll be asking producers is what they have for insurance, for crop insurance, whether they have hail insurance or production hail plans, you know. Just kind of crunching some numbers and doing some what ifs, and evaluating that stand that’s left. You know, soybeans are a good price this fall and you know it’s early enough you may want to consider doing some re-planting in some cases.”
Nesseth encourages producers to hold off a few days until making a decision just yet to see how the plants recover.
Nesseth says there were also areas of considerable ponding that took place.
