About This Episode
Four days after the August 10 derecho, Chris Barron talks with his brother-in-law Brandt Fehl, who raises corn and soybeans in east central Iowa about 20 miles south of Waterloo. The line started five or six miles north of Fehl's place and stretched almost 100 miles south. Winds held near 100 miles per hour for more than 20 minutes where he is, and 115 to 130 farther south. All 2,500 acres of his corn are damaged and three of four grain bins are crinkled.
Fehl will not walk the fields because it would only make him angrier. What had not stood back up by Tuesday morning is not coming back, and 10 miles south the ground is as flat as a gravel parking lot, with bins, buildings and houses gone. His soybeans went down flat and have since stood up, but he is worried about yield after that beating. It is the second storm like this in nine years, and friends who rebuilt after 2011 are cleaning up all over again.
The bigger problem is where the grain goes. Elevators and farms lost storage and dryers at the same time, and Fehl expects to harvest 30 percent moisture corn most of the season, so he bought a second 12-row corn head. He notes one co-op planning a 2.5 million bushel ground pile for its customers. Barron adds that basis will move well outside the damaged area as processors fill up. Fehl closes by asking listeners to help in Cedar Rapids, still without power.
“We have 2,500 acres of corn and it's all damaged. Every single acre.”
— Brandt Fehl
Key Takeaways
Winds ran near 100 mph for more than 20 minutes locally and 115 to 130 mph farther south, along a line stretching almost 100 miles.
All 2,500 acres of Fehl's corn are damaged and three of four grain bins are crinkled; soybeans went flat and have since stood back up.
Corn that had not stood up within two days is not going to, and fields 10 miles south are flat.
Storage is the real bottleneck because elevators and farms lost bins and dryers at once; one co-op plans a 2.5 million bushel ground pile.
Expect a wet harvest near 30 percent moisture, which is why Fehl added a second 12-row corn head to move faster.
Basis will be affected 20 miles out in every direction from the damage as processors get flooded with grain.
Full Transcript
Chris: And it all comes down to this.
Brandt
Fehl: 2 on, 2 out, bottom of the 9th. The Farmers lead by 1.
Chris: Full count, here comes the play at the plate, and it's the Ag View Pitch! Welcome everybody to another episode of the Ag View Pitch, and today we're doing a little video with the podcast. So if you're listening to this, you'll have to bear with us, and we will have this on YouTube as well. Today you've got obviously Chris Barron and Brant Fehl. He's my brother-in-law, and I've gotten more phone calls, I think, than I've probably ever gotten, and text messages from clients just wondering how'd you fare and everything. And in our farm operation, we were pretty lucky. I mean, we were about 10 miles north of all the devastation and all the craziness and stuff, and then You guys farm basically about probably what, another maybe 10 miles south of us almost, but you're also west of us a ways.
So Brant, tell us a little bit about your experience where you were at and you guys are sort of on the edge of it too, but talk a little bit about what your experience was when the storm kind of went through here.
Brandt
Fehl: Okay. Yeah. Like Chris said, my name is Brant Fehl. We raise corn and soybeans in east central Iowa. We're 20 miles about south of Waterloo, and the storm started about probably 5 or 6 miles north of us is where the line is here, and it stretched almost 100 miles south. So winds were sustained in this area around 100 miles per hour for over 20 minutes. The further south you go, they were 115 to 130 miles per hour. We have 2,500 acres of corn and it's all damaged. Every single acre. We do not have one field that doesn't have damage. And it was already tangled up from a windstorm here about a month ago. We had some structural damage. We have 4 grain bins that—
Chris: which you can see.
Brandt
Fehl: You can see 3 of the 4 that got crinkled. It looks like a giant came up and just pushed on the corner of the bin and said, let's see if I can kill this one. And this is the second time in 9 years that this has happened to us, to have this bad of winds. So our soybeans were flat as well, which I had never seen that ever. They were as flat as a pancake. Now today they're standing up straight, but I'm concerned about the yield on the soybeans as well now for getting beat up as hard as they did for as long as they did.
Chris: One of the things that we noticed around here, and I know it's a conversation we'll be having next week with Iowa State as they're doing more assessments and evaluations evaluations of the storm area size and scope and everything, but you guys have a lot of corn that's either flat or leaning. Have you been out in it and kind of an idea? I mean, I keep hearing some people say, well, some of that's going to stand back up. Well, a lot of it's not going to stand back up.
Brandt
Fehl: It's not standing back up. What has stood up is, if it stood up, I could tell a little bit of difference just directly across the road from my house, which is straight east of here. On Tuesday morning that the edge had stood up. But I'm not going to waste my time going out and walking through it because it's only going to make me more upset than I already am.
Chris: Right.
Brandt
Fehl: But you go— if we go about 10 miles south of here, it is completely steamrolled. It's as flat as this gravel parking lot.
Chris: Grain bins included.
Brandt
Fehl: Grain bins, buildings, houses, you name it.
Chris: Yeah.
Brandt
Fehl: It's amazing nobody died.
Chris: Yeah. And we'll get some footage of that. So if you are watching this, we will have that edited into this to kind of show some of the crop damage and sort of what some of that looks like. Brant, talk a little bit about, you know, you were in the house, your wife was on a Zoom call, the storm starts. What happens then?
Brandt
Fehl: I stood and watched it like I normally do for, I don't know, 3 or 4 minutes probably. And after that, I was absolutely terrified. I grabbed my wife, we went downstairs, and we stood there for 15 minutes and just watched everything go to hell.
Chris: Huh. Yeah. Yeah, that's crazy. What, what, as far as, you know, your friends and places you've been and what you've seen, talk a little bit about that too.
Brandt
Fehl: So, well, 9 years ago there was a derecho that went through here, not here, As much, but further south in Dysart, Iowa, and about 8 miles south of there, destroyed their farms, and it just happened again on Monday. So all the friends that cleaned up in 2011, they're doing it all again today. And I helped a friend of mine on Tuesday, two friends of mine on Tuesday, one just a tree, the other one his shop, his machine shed, his corn crib, His house, all of his trees, everything. It's gone. It's just destroyed. Wow. And then another friend lost their entire grain setup. That's another thing. The local elevators have lost all of their capacity. Some to the south, it's gone. And so did the farmers. So that's the, that's the problem. The true problem. Where is the grain going to go?
Chris: Right. And that was going to be my next question. Getting to that part of it is You know, and that's one of the questions that we keep getting from producers too is, well, the crop's damaged, so you wouldn't need maybe as much space. But on the same token, the crop's not zero. You know, it's— there's areas obviously where it's devastated to zero, but there's also a lot of areas where I think we're still going to have, you know, we were setting up for a pretty darn good crop even though, you know, some of these areas were really dry, but we were still probably setting up for 150 to 220, 230, 240 bushel corn. So if you take, say, 20%, 30% off the top of that, yep, you're still going to have a lot of bushels to deal with. And so basis is going to be an issue. Just handling. Are you hearing anybody talk about, you know, what's the solution?
Because I know one thing you told me, you know what, half an hour later you bought another 12-row corn head so you could, you know, because you know harvest is going to be a slow process. So you guys accomplished that. But what about bin space for these guys?
Brandt
Fehl: Well, for the guys that lost their grain setups, can they go to the processor? I don't know. The processor can only process so much grain every day. Right. And they already have other stuff going on. Yeah. So, but the next problem is drying the grain because we're going to have to go out and get this corn as soon as we possibly can.
Chris: Right.
Brandt
Fehl: We're going to be harvesting 30% corn and I'm sure we're going to be harvesting most of the season. That way. And their grain dryers are gone too. Well, you can't throw that grain in a bag and sit it on the ground and hope for it to be okay because it's not going to be. So I don't know what their answer is. I know there's a large co-op, Mid-Iowa Co-op, that has guaranteed their customers that they will have storage for them this year. Now what that really looks like at this point, it's hard to say.
Chris: They must have a really good contingency plan.
Brandt
Fehl: Yeah. So Evidently they're gonna put up a 2.5 million bushel pile on their, one of their facilities, and they're gonna get their bins rebuilt supposedly and go from there.
Chris: So, so, so like you said, you know, I've heard a lot of people talking about going to the bags and that being a pretty good solution probably for a lot of people. The problem is, like you said, is if you have to go start getting this stuff and it's, you know, maybe not 30%, but even if it's 25, 24%, you still gotta probably need to be looking at drying this stuff down some. That's gonna be a major issue, isn't it?
Brandt
Fehl: Yeah, it's gonna be a huge issue. We are so fortunate in this area. Yeah, we lost a building. Yes, we have been damaged. Yes, all of our corn is damaged. My house sustained a little bit of damage. Everybody's alive. Nobody was injured in this area at all. And I still have most of my storage and I have a grain dryer. There's a lot of guys that can't say that.
Chris: Yeah, and the dryer is the key piece right now. Yep. So what do you think on basis? You know, this is something that we've been talking with Dwayne on all of our podcasts and stuff. We've talked about, you know, the need for paying attention to basis and watching that really close. What's your thought on that? Is that, I mean, you guys have bushels that are gonna have to go that won't fit in storage, or do you got room?
Brandt
Fehl: I don't think that this year is gonna be as big of an issue. Generally, we will haul a fair amount off the farm and just go to a local elevator. They've always been really good. They have contracts with Cargill. We can take full rails, as many rail cars as we want, and we can play the basis game with them on that direction.
Chris: Right. So a lot of the guys though, they're probably, if they do know they're going to have to be taking this stuff, you know, away and getting it to the processor or wherever they need to go, they're going to need to be watching basis and probably thinking about getting that locked in now.
Brandt
Fehl: Yeah, basis contracts. Made me, it didn't make me a lot of money, but I didn't lose near as much this year with my final bushels and things of that sort. So I don't know, I think it's a good idea to be looking at it for sure.
Chris: Yeah, and I think the other, the other thing that people need to be cognizant of too is just the fact that we're probably going to have a lot of areas where the corn wasn't affected, but the basis will be affected because this is going to amplify out well past the the areas where the storm damage is. So if you're 20 miles north, south, east, west of damage, in all likelihood there will be a basis impact at some point, probably.
Brandt
Fehl: Yeah, because the processes are going to be flooded and they're going to try to get you to stay away for a while.
Chris: Right, right, right.
Brandt
Fehl: Yeah, for sure.
Chris: Anything I didn't ask? I mean, you guys went through hell, but you, you missed the— you're kind of on the edge of hell, I guess you could say. Yeah, unfortunately.
Brandt
Fehl: Well, what really upset me the most, to be honest with you, is On Sunday afternoon, one of my best friends brought me an old grain bin to make a grain bin gazebo. And I didn't have it tied down.
Chris: Oh no.
Brandt
Fehl: And the son of a bitch is east of my house about a half mile in the cornfield. So, but you know, for a little bit of levity there. Yeah. But.
Chris: And that's an important bin. Which you can put some alcohol in. Yeah.
Brandt
Fehl: That was the plan. We were going to party.
Chris: Drown our sorrows a little bit.
Brandt
Fehl: For sure.
Chris: Yep. But no, I think your point on everybody being alive, you know, we do this for our families. We do this because we love it. Love what we do.
Brandt
Fehl: Yep.
Chris: And appreciate your time. Absolutely. Thanks for sharing. Yeah, I think, like I said, we've gotten more calls, more texts wondering what's going on, and this is the first of a few we want to do. And appreciate you being the first and getting your story out.
Brandt
Fehl: And yeah, and if anybody is looking for something to do, and I know we're all busy, we're trying to get ready for harvest, Cedar Rapids, Iowa is destroyed and they could use any help that they could get.
Chris: Yeah, and that's, that's for sure. We drove through Cedar Rapids last night and it was, it was dark. Yeah, no electricity yet. And that, and that was Thursday night. Today's the 13th of August, and yes, what was that, 4 days later, and they still don't have power.
Brandt
Fehl: Yeah, and it could be weeks is what they're saying.
Chris: We were en route to Illinois and we met, I don't know, 3 convoys, I think, of, of trucks. And I would imagine that's probably where they were heading, is they were this part of Iowa.
Brandt
Fehl: Yeah, they were coming from the north yesterday coming past here as well. Yeah. Out of Minnesota and the Dakotas and such.
Chris: So yeah. That's great to see.
Brandt
Fehl: Yeah.
Chris: All right, Brant, hey, thanks, bud.
Brandt
Fehl: You bet, thank you.
Chris: And thanks everybody for listening and viewing and watching, and we will catch you next time on the Ag View Pitch.