County Farm Bureaus and individual members are encouraged to submit comments on interpretations of farm trucking rules by the Aug. 1 deadline. ..........................2
a usDa unDe rse Cre tary announced last week the agency was looking at ways to improve how it delivers information to farmers. ...............................3
a FeDeral agenCy is significantly reducing fees customers must pay to file rail freight rate or “unreasonable practice” complaints. ..............................................8
Monday, July 18, 2011
Two sections Volume 39, No. 29
Windstorms flatten thousands of corn acres BY DANIEL GRANT FarmWeek
Potential yield on thousands of acres of corn in Illinois was blown away in a matter of minutes last week as straight-line winds cut a large swath through the region. The storm, called a “derecho,” produced wind speeds near 70 mph, damaged crops, knocked out power, and downed tree limbs in a 550mile path from central Iowa to Detroit, Mich., with some of the worst damage on a line from northeast Iowa, across Northern Illinois, and up into southern Wisconsin. A derecho is a long-lived, widespread, and damaging storm associated with rapidly moving showers and thunderstorms. Wind speeds in a derecho can exceed 100 mph, according to Bryce Anderson, DTN senior ag meteorologist. “It didn’t last very long,” said Richard Beuth, who farms with his son, Paul, near Seward in Winnebago County. “But it kind of came in waves. I think that made it worse.” Beuth this year planted about 700 acres of corn, and the majority of it (400 acres) was damaged to varying degrees by the storm.
Some of the lesser-damaged corn on Beuth’s farm as of late last week was righting itself, although it likely will be a “tangled mess to combine,” he noted. Other fields remained flat
FarmWeekNow.com Learn more about the aftermath of the storms in Illinois at FarmWeekNow.com.
in the days following the storm. “It was looking close to a 200bushel crop,” Beuth said. “Some of it, if we get rain, still could be a good crop. But the bad stuff (at harvest) could go anywhere from zero to 50 or 60 bushels. I’m not real optimistic about it.” Brian Duncan, a farmer from Polo and president of the Ogle County Farm Bureau, said the storm flattened 500 acres of corn on his farm. “The crop, overall, looked really good,” Duncan said on Thursday. “Now, I’m not sure what I’ve got. “Some of the stuff that wasn’t hit so bad seems to be standing back up,” he continued. “But what’s flat is still flat.” The crop’s ability to recover will depend on the severity of damage, its stage of growth at the time of the storm, and weather conditions the rest of
the season, according to Todd Thumma, a Syngenta agronomist from Morrison. He noted damaged corn that has not tasseled has the ability to anchor in the ground and gooseneck back to a more upright growing position. “If the reproductive portions of the plant are upright at pollination, then you can often get good ear set,” Thumma said.
However, “root-lodged corn that is horizontal at pollination will have poor ear set and often fail to pollinate the side of the ear that is facing down.” A good portion of the damaged crop reportedly had not pollinated when the storm hit. “I’d think (some of) the corn is young enough that it will come back up,” Bob Dyer, IFB Region 2 manager who lives in
Kankakee, said last week. “But, man, it looks bad right now.” Overall, the strong storm knocked out power to about 847,000 ComEd customers in Northern Illinois, the Rockford Register Star reported. The extensive loss of electricity caused by last week’s storm rivaled a 1998 ice storm See Windstorms, page 3
Richard Beuth, a farmer from Seward in Winnebago County, holds a lone corn stalk upright in this field about three miles southeast of Pecatonica that was flattened last week by a severe storm that produced windspeeds near 70 mph. The field prior to the storm appeared to have 200-bushel potential, but now Beuth is not very optimistic about it. (Photo by Roger Christin, Winnebago County Farm Bureau manager)
Analyst: U.S. debt ‘default’ unlikely prospect Periodicals: Time Valued
BY MARTIN ROSS FarmWeek
As Congress and the White House remained gridlocked over proposals to raise the U.S. debt ceiling, an AgriVisor market analyst warned ag markets ultimately could feel the “ripples” if policymakers ultimately failed to reach an accommodation — an outcome he believes is unlikely. Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s warns it could cut the U.S.’ prized AAA world credit rating, potentially affecting trade and other global relationships if a deal is not reached soon. Sen. Dick Durbin, a Springfield Democrat, warned last
week “it’s time to put the politics aside — for the future of business, for jobs, and for the good of the American economy.” The ongoing debt ceiling debate itself “doesn’t mean a whole lot to the dollar,” AgriVisor’s Dale Durchholz said in an RFD Radio-FarmWeek interview. But overall global debt and worst-case prospects for a U.S. impasse pose the potential for what he termed a “negative replay” in the economy. “The real ripples come if we technically have ‘default’ — they (Washington leaders) don’t come to an agreement to raise the ceiling and there’s no money there to pay off exist-
FarmWeek on the web: FarmWeekNow.com
ing bonds and notes that are coming due,” Durchholz said. “Pushed against the wall, nobody in Washington’s going to let that happen. “Talks fell apart trying to put together a bigger package — scaling back debt with something like $4 trillion in (budget) reductions. “Now, everybody’s trying to target something roughly in the $2 trillion range, in which we’d have a contraction of future debt as we allow the debt ceiling to rise. As long as we don’t go into default, that really doesn’t matter.” The ongoing European debt crisis and the resulting “drag
on the euro” is a more pressing currency issue, he argued. While Greece “threw a temporary Band-Aid” on its problems, ratings analysts this month downgraded Portuguese credit essentially to “junk bond status,” and Italy now is sharing debt headlines with Ireland and Spain, Durchholz related. At the same time, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao reiterated efforts to target domestic inflation, hinting at additional interest rate increases. Durchholz cited “generally disappointing” Chinese trade data for June and suggested China See Debt, page 2
Illinois Farm Bureau®on the web: www.ilfb.org