O’Brien County storm damage significant

A meeting was held this afternoon in O’Brien County regarding this week’s storm damage in the area. ISU extension crop specialist Joel DeJong says until this week, crops were doing well in the area but on Monday night, a big storm went through the northwest corner of Iowa. They had hail and winds measured at 60-miles an hour, and the Emergency Review Committee of the Farm Services Agency in O’Brien County estimates that 90-thousand acres were damaged and had 50-percent yield loss. He says most of those acres “pretty much are done for” as far as getting a harvest this year. While spring storms leave farmers time to replant a crop, DeJong says they don’t have that option now. By the middle of July advisors don’t recommend a second planting, as soybeans probably won’t mature in time and there are few other crop options you can start in mid-summer either. If you’re fortunate enough to have cattle, a farmer can let them graze on the ruined crop, or cut it and make it into silage to feed livestock.