Shay Foulk and Meaghan Anderson discuss the aftermath of the derecho

Shay

Foulk: And it all comes down to this. Two on, two out, bottom of the ninth. The Farmers lead by one. Full count, here comes the play at the plate, and it's the Ag View Pitch! Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Ag View Pitch, and today you have myself, Shea Polk, with Megan Anderson. How are you today, Megan?

Meaghan

Anderson: I'm doing all right. How are you?

Shay

Foulk: All right, that's a good way to describe it. I'm doing fairly well. Just returned from a stint out west on vacation and came back to a little bit of a mess back home. It's a pretty light way to put it here. You know, we had this storm go through the beginning of the week, and it's a lot of questions out there on what this looks like moving forward.— it's always reach out and, you know, get some different perspective. That's our whole goal here at AgU-Pitch is to provide farmers with value and perspective on what they need to be thinking about moving forward. So I was wondering if you can maybe just introduce yourself here quickly, talk a little bit about your role and what it is that you do, and then we'll go from there.

Meaghan

Anderson: Yeah, so my name is Megan Anderson and I'm one of 11 extension field agronomists across the state for Iowa State University. So we all serve kind of different county territories. So I would serve clientele in central Iowa. I've got a 9-county area there that runs kind of Highway 30 down to I-80 and then south into even Madison and Warren County. And I do a lot of stuff. I get to wear a ton of different hats in my job, which is part of what makes it so fun. But a lot of what I do is is kind of more independent advisory to farmers and others in agriculture who, who want, you know, Iowa State's research-based information or research-based information from other universities. So I kind of act similarly to maybe an independent crop consultant, but I work for the university.

Shay

Foulk: That's fantastic, and I think unfortunately with the event that's going on here this week, you're probably exactly the right person to be talking to, and we were mentioning offline You know, you've been getting phone calls and seeing a lot in that area, so I was wondering if you can just give a little perspective on, um, you know, what, what did this storm do? What does it look like from your boots-on-the-ground perspective? And, and what's kind of an overview of what's going on in that area right now?

Meaghan

Anderson: Yeah, so, uh, I mean, I think everybody's probably pretty familiar with, you know, what happens when a tornado comes through, or you maybe straight-line winds or some, you know, really big storm in an isolated area of the state takes down some corn crop late in the season or lays the soybeans down. And I mean, so that's essentially what we saw happen, but with the way this storm formed, and it became that, you know, infamous term derecho that nobody knew what it meant until this week, Instead of just being a really isolated thing that goes through a few miles, we saw it go through essentially, I don't know, two-thirds of the state across as far as the width-wise and then distance north to south. In some cases it went all the way up basically to Highway 20 almost and then came south through I-80. So just the The size of damage was incredible.

It's almost unbelievable, hard to wrap your head around. And then, you know, in the individual crop field, it, it just did anything from lean the corn over a little bit, maybe a little bit of root lodging, or it kind of bent the tops over the plants, all the way to corn completely snapped off below the ear evenly, you know, 2 to 3 nodes above ground., to corn that is so flat on the ground that you could see me on the other side of 160 acres. So it's— and that's not even mentioning, right, all the infrastructure damage that happened, right? This is just the crop. So the— just the gravity of the storm and what it's done to agriculture in Iowa, um, it's just unbelievable.

Shay

Foulk: And I don't— I don't think we have enough time to even begin to touch the amount of structural damage and the loss that folks have had out there, from livestock facilities to grain facilities and personal homes. And then you get into the cities and, you know, especially Cedar Rapids area and a lot of the smaller communities that were in the path are just absolutely devastated. And definitely our thoughts are with those communities and wonderful people that are helping to reconstruct those areas, you know, the linemen and the city workers and neighbors and farming community helping each other out. We've seen so many positive stories out of that. But getting back to the, you know, on the agronomic side, you mentioned there's a whole variety of symptoms out there, of damage, and the extent to which that goes is hard to even describe.

And it sounds like it's pretty non-discriminatory from crop stages and differences in crops. Is that pretty accurate that— it didn't matter whether it was V12 or tasseling or, you know, full reproductive corn here. It pretty much just took everything out, right?

Meaghan

Anderson: Yeah, I mean, basically everything was in some stage of reproduction at this point in the growing season. And, and, you know, in some of the fringe areas, we can maybe pick up a little bit of difference, like in an area that's more protected, you might notice that like the north-south rows look more affected than rows that are running east-west. Just because they kind of were standing against the wind and they didn't have something else to lean on maybe. But, you know, 70-plus mile an hour winds are pretty non-discriminatory as far as corn goes, and so it just blazed across this acreage. And there's definitely a lot of variety in most fields between corn that, you know, is basically standing and looks unaffected to corn that's flat on the ground.

Shay

Foulk: Right. So with your role through the university and your, your counterparts, you know, you mentioned there was 11 of you out there. What can farmers in the community expect from someone in your role, and what does it look like from the university moving forward as we evaluate everything that has gone on here and how that affects us through the rest of the fall?

Meaghan

Anderson: Yeah, so I mean right now we're fielding a lot of phone calls, just answering questions, providing advice one-on-one to farmers as well as trying to put things out on, you know, social media and via news releases, and we'll be working over the coming days to pull together the best resources that we can as far as the prospects for what's going to happen with the rest of the crop and, you know, information about kind of best practices if somebody's thinking about harvesting silage from this and what do we need to be thinking about as far as grain quality issues, uh, or ear molds or whatever. And then, and then of course, uh, harvest considerations and post-harvest considerations.

And, and so we're, we're just really working on pulling as many resources as we can together to disseminate those so that we can make sure that that, you know, we have some time right now that, but, you know, we hope every farmer has called their insurance agents, right, crop insurance or otherwise, depending on what kind of damage they've seen. But there's a period of time here where we can't really do anything, right? The crop insurance agents aren't going to want to be out in the field until, you know, 7 to 10 days after the event when we can really tell what's what's dead or dying or what's gonna maybe survive and kind of limp through the rest of the season. And so we have some time here where we can really start to prepare for, for what we're facing at harvest. And so that's really what we're kind of, kind of looking at as far as preparation for the rest of the year.

Shay

Foulk: I'm gonna ask you a little bit more on that, but before we get to that, where can they find these resources and some of these best practices that the university will be putting out? What are some of the places they can look for that information?

Meaghan

Anderson: Definitely, we'll have news releases out that will be on our Extension website, but we also have the, as the Iowa State University crops team, it's crops.extension.iastate.edu. And so we put out what's called ICM News, and then we have ICM blogs, and anybody can subscribe to those if they'd like to receive them direct to their email inbox. So but they can also just go to the website and see the most recent ones. And so we'll be putting them out primarily through those routes, but there's also a disaster recovery page that I think if you just searched Iowa State disaster recovery, that will be put, you know, all that information will be put up on that page as well.

Shay

Foulk: That's fantastic, and I'll be sure to link this in with the podcast for anybody to click and see so that they can go and look for some of that information. Getting back to some of the more specifics on this, if, if there are farmers out there that are thinking, okay, maybe there's a feedlot or a dairy or someone close by that potentially could use the silage, you know, there's only so much use for silage out there, but what are some of the considerations that they're looking at with, with that right now for crops that have been impacted by the storm?

Meaghan

Anderson: Yeah, so that's definitely the most pressing thing, right, that we, if we're going to make silage, that's really what we need to be thinking about right now. And so again, just, you know, the first thing is to be in contact with your crop insurance agent because, um, there are definite considerations if you're thinking about taking it as silage, and you should not be harvesting a crop until they've given you the okay to do so. And so in some cases they may tell you harvest the crop, but you need to leave a check strip. Out there. So that's the number one thing. The next big thing is determining the timing of it, right? And so if people are relying on like custom harvesters, you know, in some cases the timing is whenever the custom harvester shows up.

But my understanding, my limited understanding of equipment is that it's probably going to take a pretty specific head, like a Kemper head, to be able to get through this material. And so, you know, thinking about these kinds of things now. So if somebody's considering silage, making sure that they're having those conversations right now and that they're monitoring the moisture of the crop as best they can so that, so that when it's ready, right, to be ensiled, they can be prepared for it. And probably the other big thing is making sure that they've got proper storage facilities.

So hopefully if, I mean, if they're considering harvesting silage, they probably have those storage facilities available, but making sure that, that those are prepared so that, you know, if we're going to go, go to all the work to make silage, hopefully we can at least make sure that it's as quality silage as we can get from this type of crop and that it's going to keep for us. Right.

Shay

Foulk: With the, the yield loss, and this is looking specifically at, corn, and then we'll talk some on soybeans here as well. There's a lot of variables that go into this, you know, um, did the wind tear some of that leaf structure apart, leaf tissue? Is there any hail associated with it? Is the corn snapped or is it bowed over? How does it affect the grain fill and test weight? I know there's a lot of information out there, um, from the university, but with an event this time of the year at this crop stage in development, what are some of the things that producers and and the affected areas can expect as we move forward for the fill and finish of this corn crop through the rest of the season?

Meaghan

Anderson: Yeah, it's— I wish I had really good news for it, right? You know, a lot of cases when we've got a wind event that just bends corn over, root lodges it earlier in the season, we can expect that it's going to stand back up and we're not— you know, it may be like a little blip on the radar. If it happens before reproductive stages or before tasseling occurs. Um, at this point in the growing season, we're looking at likely substantial yield loss, and it's really hard to put a ballpark range on it, um, just because it's going to be so variable from field to field. But at R4 and early R5, um, grain dry matter accumulation in corn is only about 20 to 25% of what total would be. And so most of this stuff appears to be root lodged, right?

And the extent of yield loss is going to be related to the extent of, you know, the root damage and the moisture availability, uh, and this— the ability of those leaves to collect sunlight, right? So how on top of each other are they? But, but there are going to be areas where we're looking at essentially 100% yield loss because not only are maybe the plants broken over, but there's absolutely no hope of picking them up. So, so there's really two different things, right? The first of which is going to be what that yield loss is from the damage that's occurred right now, and then the second part is going to be what are the harvest losses that we're going to see, right? How much yield is going to be left in the field that we're not going to be able to pick up? Right.

Shay

Foulk: Some of the other considerations at this point are, uh, for the corn that is out there that's been damaged, is disease, pests. You mentioned ear mold. What specifically in those categories are things that, uh, you know, are likely following an event like this?

Meaghan

Anderson: Yeah, so I'd say one of the big things is, uh, in addition to those is light grain. Um, and so, uh, qual— all these things are quality factors at this point, right? That, that we're worried about, you know, not only are we getting yield, are we able to pick up the crop, but what's the quality of that crop going to be like once we get it, um, in? And so light grain is going to be a big issue, variable grain, um, and then all of this damage, uh, and the fact that a lot of these ears are basically on the ground or very close to the ground, there's probably going to be less air movement and, uh, higher humidity. And in some cases, some of these ears have been kind of opened up, um, and so we're looking at the prospect of these ear molds coming in. Um, and depending on the conditions, we may see different ear molds, right?

In western Iowa, where they were really, really droughty, and central Iowa, um, before the, these storms came through, um, we may see more, we may see aflatoxin, right, or Aspergillus mold develop and then potential for aflatoxin, which is the mycotoxin that can be associated with the Aspergillus. Um, in other areas of the state we may see other ear rots show up and it's just a matter of what the environment's gonna, you know, what it's gonna give us for the rest of the season at this point.

Shay

Foulk: That's a great point. I'm glad you hit on, on that test weight or that lighter grain there as well. With the amount of damage from, you know, the disease and the quality, as you mentioned, in not only the grain but the actual, the stalk, the plant itself, there's a significant worry of stalk quality later into the season. So is early harvest or higher moisture harvest something that producers should be considering or how has this been impacted in the past? You know, a lot of farmers out there remember 2011 when eastern Iowa was hit pretty heavily with a storm very similar to this. What are some considerations there?

Meaghan

Anderson: Yeah, so I think people are definitely going to want to be getting the crop out of the field probably earlier than they would prefer to, right? Just about as early as they feel like they can get out through their because the stalk integrity, like you mentioned, is going to be an issue. The integrity of the ear shank is going to be a problem, right? The longer we let this, this stuff sit out in the field and get drier and drier, the more harvest loss we're going to see. And, uh, you know, I'm not an expert in the economics of, of this and the crop insurance, but what Chad Hart told me today on our Zoom session was that it is worth harvesting this crop because any yield you can pick up is important at this point, and it's less for you to deal with in the future, right, as far as volunteer corn goes and other issues.

And, and so getting out there earlier, there is probably going to be some break-even point, right, regarding moisture percent, right? How many points 'Can I afford to dry this crop?' But definitely earlier is going to be better than later, and the more damaged fields are probably going to be the ones that ought to be on the priority list for the earliest harvest.

Shay

Foulk: And following a wet 2019, unfortunately a lot of producers probably have their drying costs pretty dialed in, so I guess if there's a silver lining on that standpoint, maybe we'll be able to make some better decisions there as producers.

Meaghan

Anderson: I agree. Oh, I was gonna say, I agree, and I hope that we can remember maybe the propane issues that we ran into last fall, and so we can learn some lessons, lessons from our wet falls that we've had.

Shay

Foulk: Right. With, you know, any of the other questions that you've been fielding from producers here the last few days, or conversations that you have Is there anything that I haven't asked that maybe you and your colleagues have been addressing or other issues that are out there? You know, what have we missed in this conversation that's good for the farmer to know?

Meaghan

Anderson: Yeah, I mean, I think it's been a really good conversation, and at this point it's just kind of a wait and see, which is unfortunate. So probably one of the biggest action items aside from contacting crop insurance agents that that I've had discussions with people about is considering whether or not there needs to be some maybe adjustments made to harvest equipment, right? Do you need to be purchasing some items or thinking about things that are going to help us get through these fields maybe with a little bit less of a headache and maybe pick up a little bit more crop? And I know that, you know, for some people it's so far down on the list of to-dos that it's just it's not going to happen for several weeks, but I know for some folks that maybe sustained some less, lesser problems with their property, they may be able to kind of start that analysis.

So those are definitely things that I'd be thinking about right now.

Shay

Foulk: That's great information. And, you know, to end it on a little bit more of a positive note, as we go through these events, it's not It's not anything that we haven't dealt with before. So many operations out there have experience with the damage and the economic downturn that we've had. And at each one of these events, we see the positivity of neighbors coming together, communities banding and helping each other out. And so we're so very thankful that we live in the communities and the state in this area that we do. And, you know, we're praying for everybody affected out there. Not just in Iowa, but South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, some areas in Minnesota as well. You know, we're definitely thinking of everybody out there and certainly will look for some more information.

The universities do a great job of putting this out and just want to thank you so much, Megan, for, for you and your team and everything that the, the crops does there as well. For all this great information that you're putting out to producers. We really appreciate it.

Meaghan

Anderson: Well, I appreciate you doing this podcast and I appreciate our farming community and, and, you know, every— we're resilient, right? And we'll get through this and we'll do it together, just like you said.

Shay

Foulk: Absolutely. Megan, thank you so much for taking the time. And like I said, I'll link these resources into the podcast. I really appreciate you having you on, and hopefully we'll be able to touch base here maybe in a few weeks or months down the road for any future considerations.

Meaghan

Anderson: I think that'd be great. Thanks for having me.

Shay

Foulk: And thank you everyone for listening. We will catch you next time on the Aggie Pitch.