Weekend storms full of heavy rains and wind took varying tolls on Indiana farmland. Reports from the western edge of the state had some fields hit hard but David Virgin in Montgomery County did not incur any damage.
“We had some wind but no hail that I’m aware of,” he told HAT. “It didn’t really flatten anything but it was an aggressive wind and the rain came down pretty heavy. Other than that we’re in pretty good shape since it didn’t mow any corn off or anything.”
Virgin says he finished all planting a week ago and the crops look very good.
“Hey we’re in good shape. All the corn is emerged and we’ve got good stands. Beans are almost through and looking good there. We caught just a little over 3 inches of rain in this last go around, a week and a half of moisture and we’ve got a few ponds, but for the most part we’re looking good. We’ve got the anhydrous bars all hooked up and ready to go, and as soon as it dries out we’ve got about 2,500 of corn to sidedress.”
Monday and Tuesday were dry and somewhat cool and Virgin says he’ll need more dry days than that to take care of the ponds.
Further north Katie Darr farms in Syracuse, Indiana where 2 and a quarter inches fell and there was no field damage. She says they were fortunate but there was a different picture just south of there.
“South of here not very far in Warsaw and the southern end of Kosciusko County some of my customers had between 4 and 6 inches and a lot of came at once. There was some damage, not anything terrible like they’ve seen out west, but there was even some fence damage. One of my customers (Crestview Commodities) said the rain was so heavy and so hard it swept one of their fences away. You know they’re some things that are headaches to deal with but in the scheme of things we’ve been really fortunate compared to people in Oklahoma.”
The ponded fields near Syracuse should bounce back according to Darr, but those who had the heavier rains are now debating whether or not to replant.