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Spring derecho complicates harvest time for South Dakota farmer

The effects from a spring derecho have spilled over to harvest for a farmer in southeast South Dakota.

Dawn Scheier of Salem says the 120-mph wind event not only forced them to replant 500 acres of soybeans, but also destroyed their grain storage facilities.

“As of right now we do not have any working bins, so we are going to have to go to the elevator for all of our beans and that is a little different for us. It will be challenging for the trucking side of it.”

She says usually they store all of their crop on the farm during harvest in order to finish up ahead of the cold weather and haul to an elevator afterwards.

Scheier says farming comes with a lot of risk and they implement strategies to manage that and prepare for the unknown.

“This year we were lucky to get a lot of prepay, we got our prices locked in. Because we planted in dry dirt, we upped our crop insurance. And we got about 45% of our soybeans marketed ahead of time.”  

Scheier made her comments as part of a farmer panel on a recent webinar hosted by the US Soybean Export Council.