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From ‘too little’ to ‘that’s enough for now’
A deluge of rain over the past week has flooded farm fields in the tri-state region of Iowa, Minnesota and South Dakota. In some cases, crops have been damaged or even destroyed.
Brian Kemp, who farms near Sibley in northwest Iowa, says they have had seven inches of rain since Saturday. But Kemp says, because that area was so dry, he actually welcomed the moisture.
“My crop, both corn and soybeans, went into a very, very dry seedbed with very low subsoil moisture levels, so we were really in need of moisture,” Kemp says. “The first three inches we got within a 12-hour period, most of that penetrated the soil and soaked in.”
Kemp says the next four inches came more rapidly with a little bit of hail in some places. But he says most of the flooding is occurring west of where he farms.
“Hopefully that will subside—some producers are talking about doing a little bit of replanting, not only because of hail but because of the flooding,” he says. “But we’re getting set up to have a very good growing season, other than the damage that’s taken place with the hail and the flooding.”
Kemp is president of the Iowa Soybean Association.
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