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In the USDA August crop report Wednesday there will likely not be an adjustment to corn and soybean production from Monday night’s storm. But there was damage and that included crops. It was a derecho storm that swept through a wide area with straight-line winds, and Arlan Suderman of StoneX says 17 million acres of corn and 14 million acres of soybeans were in areas that had varying degrees of high winds.
“It’s fortunate that it didn’t happen a month earlier when the stalks were much more brittle and we would have more green snap than we ended up, having just more bent over and laid over plants that’ll try to straighten up,” he said. “It’ll still impact grain fill because the Pythium inside that stalk has been damaged transferring water and nutrients up to that ear. So, we look for maybe a 10 to 20 percent yield reduction in those fields that are able to stand back up, but still took some significant damage.”
The corn crop is the most susceptible to damage, and Suderman says there will eventually be lost production factored in.
“Right now we’re looking at between 200 and 400 million bushels of lost production off of whatever potential you want to use, pulling about 2.5 to 4.5 bushels per acre off the national yield, again whatever national yield you want to use, trend yield, above trend yield like the trade seems to be anticipating. Regardless, it still leaves us with adequate supplies and no need to ration demand with higher prices.”
He says even more significant is the damage impact upon storage facilities.
“Right ahead of harvest, farmer bins that were destroyed and then commercial grain facilities that were destroyed, that’s going to have a big negative impact on basis in those areas that saw that destruction of the storage facilities,” Suderman told HAT.
All of this due to a Monday storm that brought hurricane force winds to the corn belt.
“We saw hurricane force winds of better than 75 miles per hour, 65 knots roughly as they define it, going through central Iowa, first starting in eastern Nebraska near the Omaha area, through central Iowa and in scattered areas of the northern half of Illinois,” he explained. “Then they started to ease off as everything kind of spread out to the south and east across Indiana, Michigan and into western Ohio. There were numerous wind reports in the 40-60 mph range scattered within that area as well.”
The peak winds seen by StoneX resources topped 90 and even 100 miles per hour in the Iowa and northern Illinois regions in the storm path.