Fallout from Derecho

Ok, estimates have been circulated of 10 million acres of crops (primarily corn Id guess) have been affected or damaged in just Iowa alone. Thats a nice round number, as are the following- about 90 million acres of corn was planted this year as well as 90 million acres of beans. I am assuming the damage to the united states bean crop was basically a rounding error. Corn may be a different story entirely. So my ultimate question is- did the damage from the derecho affect the corn crop enough so that prices have moved? Maybe its still too early to tell ?

I have not walked a bean field, but by visual comparison the beans around me were unaffected by the storm. Only corn.

Around this area the beans do not appear to be damaged. A couple of counties west of David G.

According to the prices on the business stations no real change just the normal up and down a few cents.

I get a futures market report in my e mail, which I glance at, and forget! Prices were up some. I can't tell you how much, as I forgot already!

You are saying it may drive the prices up? That'd be a nice change. BTOs should be fine they'll just get another government check, pretty much government owned to begin with. Its the smaller guys I'm not so sure about.

Beans look fine here, I would say 50% corn gone.

They are saying another 5-7 days before power up.

An area 10 million acres was affected.

Perhaps 1/3 of that was badly affected, perhaps 1/3 of that was a very minor issue.

We farmers do pretty good rescuing a crop, so the better 2/3 of that will be harvested fairly normal.

So maybe 1/6 of 10 million acres of corn is in bad shape there, and 1/6 as beans are pretty badly roughed up.

Unfortunately the world is awash in grains, there are no shortages or threats of shortage anywhere.

Brazil and South America are having great weather and second crops. They are expanding land to farm so will have more next year.

USA and world stocks report came out yesterday, and basically said everything the same, we will have more grain sitting around this winter than we did last winter.

So there is zero interest in raising grain prices! We have plenty.

However, today grains went up some for a change. A few other countries started buying some, putting in orders.

We think that’s a short term bump.

Now, the Iowa disaster does lower the amount of grain we will produce. Some say maybe a national average will go down 3 bushels an acre. But, we were looking at a record crop, so that doesn’t even drop us down much nationally.

Another issue that could develop is how bad the floods in China affected their crops? As a closed govt society over there, we really don’t know. Anything we hear is pretty much just rumor. If it turns out China needs to buy corn to make up for a disaster over there, that would heat up markets in a hurry. Typically China grows its own corn, and buys soybeans. If they needed to get into buying corn in a big way, that would get attention!

But as of today, we are growing more corn than we need. Even with the Iowa disaster, we still are going above and beyond.

So any price jumps are expected to be small and short lived as far as we can guess. Even if we sell a bunch extra, we should have plenty. Corn, beans, and wheat. The world is flush with grains.

I sure feel for those in Iowa affected. What terrible timing. A little earlier and the corn would somewhat right itself. A month later and it would be close to mature. Right now, the stalks are too hard they broke, didn’t bend so it will not stand up again. The grain isn’t mature at all, it will want to rot and mold in the husks as some of it tries to mature. It will be a very ugly mess. Trying to pick it up with the combine will wreck a lot of iron, to harvest a terrible crop.

Couldn’t palm it out any worse timing really for that 1/6 of the crop affected, I feel bad for those folk.

Paul

I would expect most of that corn will stand up again. Going to be a mess to harvest and likely drop the yield some, but not the total loss it looks like now.

I beg to differ, you should see it here, it is beyond belief.

Here in eastern Iowa not only is the corn bent over or flat, but many many grain bins to put the crop in are either damaged or gone. Some total drying set ups are damaged or gone. Given the condition of the corn crop it could take a lot of drying this fall. All the Co·ops are damaged. Going to take a lot of patience.

Corn that is flattened like that will not come back up at this stage of the game. The corn is into full time kernel fill so very little energy will go into straightening up or even goose necking. The corn fields with tin and tree junk scattered around will be especially tough to harvest if even a small amount of that junk is buried under downed corn. I just feel sorry for everyone affected by the storm. It is not only farmers. If the only car a low income person owns is squished by a falling tree it is a major loss to that person. It might not seem like much to us to see a $500 car wrecked but to the owner it is everything.

Empty barges are heading north at a good clip on the Mississippi.

I've seen it when I trucked thru Iowa and Illinois, it never comes up this late. Have seen guys trying to harvest flat corn in the fall...no fun. And the loss is great.

The corn i've seen isn't going to stand up. The stalk is broke off about 1 foot above the ground.

Typical story. Price at harvest is way down because bumper crop, abundance of corn/beans/ what ever. Once majority is harvested and in the terminals the story changes. Total crop was way down so price goes up. The ones to benefit from the increase is the middle men, between production and China or what country is buying it.

how can there be a bumper crop? i don't know about other areas but it was my understanding lots of corn and beans in Ill. were planted in terrible field conditions going back to last fall with soil compaction because of being wet when trying crops out of the fields.

Wouldn't any dairy farms or others with a need for silage be able to go in and chop the downed corn? But I'm in Ohio and I have no idea of Iowa based dairy farms .. and perhaps they already have their forage needs planned .. including their own downed corn.