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Hopes for cornfield recovery from derecho are fading

Photo credit: Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship

It has been ten days since the derecho wind event flattened millions of acres of corn in central and eastern Iowa. 

Morey Hill, who farms northwest of Des Moines (near Madrid), says any hopes that the crop might start to stand back up, are fading.

“The corn, right after the thing was over last Monday, was just pitiful. And everybody was optimistic that maybe it would come back up,” Hill says. “But here we are, ten days later, and it’s not recovering as fast as everybody hoped it would.”

Hill says harvesting those fields is going to be a big challenge.

“I don’t know what we can salvage. If it’s going to have to be, you know, go one-way with the way it’s laying—or not laying—and hopefully it feeds through the machine, or just what we’re going to do.

“It’s just going to be a challenge every which way.”

Hill says it’s hard to say what percentage of the crop is snapped-off versus bent-over. He’s still waiting for a crop insurance adjuster to evaluate the damage.

AUDIO: Morey Hill

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