Alan Kemper has been farming since the 70s in Tippecanoe County and he says he’s never seen a freeze like the one we saw last weekend.
“I think they’re saying it was 1966 since the last time we saw this freeze. It went to 27 degrees here south of Lafayette and 27 degrees for numerous hours.”
Kemper says he’s giving his corn some time to recover and they’ll make a decision after all the rain is through the area, but a lot of his early planted beans aren’t going to make it.
“Some beans survived really nice. Usually it’s the neighbor’s beans that survive and your own don’t and that was kind of the case here. I’ve seen some really nice beans still here in the neighborhood. Our early planting, our normal planting beans the leaves just blew off the stems and they’re gone. So, we already started replanting the beans. I’ve probably got several hundred acres of beans to replant and a couple hundred acres of corn with it.”
Kemper continued, “The challenge that we have is finding the right seed, the right maturity that you can do. We learned a lot of lessons last year.”
So, much like the historic nature of 2019’s horrific planting weather, it’s possible the costs many farmers will face with replanting will make the freeze of May 2020 something that will be talked about for years to come.