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Drought severely damaging cropsBy Joel Stottrup Longtime rural Princeton farmer John Nelson was chopping corn with his son, Roger, Saturday for silage, something they wouldn't have normally done until after the corn is frozen from autumn frost. It was only Sept. 6 and there had been no frost, just dry conditions this time that turned the cornstalks in the Nelson field brown as though they had been killed by frost. Instead of ears of corn like they would have gotten in a normal summer, the ears were markedly smaller. John Nelson estimates the yield will be 30 percent less than normal. The dry corn also needed water added to it from a hose in order to make the process work of turning it into silage. The Nelsons are like farmers across the state who received adequate rain, and maybe slightly more than usual, in early summer, only to see it stop in July and all of August, except for isolated locations. Last month was one of the five driest Augusts in Minnesota, Pete Boulay at the state climatologist office, said Monday. The drought has been widespread in Minnesota from July 15 through Sept. 2. Reviewing Mille Lacs County, he said the southern part is three inches below normal in rainfall and the northern part six inches below normal. Sherburne, Isanti and Benton counties that surround Princeton are also dry, the browning corn as evidence. The soybeans aren't faring quite as badly, said Extension Service educator Dan Martens in Benton County late last week. But he said the soybeans need moisture to fill out their pods. Regional Extension educator Paul Mahoney, based in Pine County, who speaks for the region including the Princeton area, said it is a "very critical" time for soybeans. All the ag specialists interviewed agreed that the crops that are still green and healthy have a chance to recover if sufficient rain comes soon. But for those crops that are brown like so much of the corn is, it is too late. The picture of the crops is variable, said Mahoney, explaining, "Some looks completely dead and some is still pretty green." Mahoney said he is inclined to assume that crops on the sandy soil are brown but noted that he has seen some green, irrigated fields. But even those don't look that good, he added. "It's just like it was in the 1930s," said John Nelson, who farms on Baldwin Township's sandy soil south of the city of Princeton. "You would look up in the skies and once in a while there would be a puff of a cloud and then it would disappear." Gov. Tim Pawlenty has told the state office of the federal Farm Service Administration that he is agreeable to that office requesting federal designation of appropriate Minnesota counties as disaster areas because of the drought. Barb Fockert, state natural disaster planner, told the Union-Eagle Monday that counties are making damage assessments to send to the state FSA office. The state then sends a letter of request to Washington, D.C., based on those assessments. Rural Princeton farmer Tim Wilhelm said the drought is a "double whammy" for many crops. Because the crops started out the growing season with a lot of moisture, their roots didn't go down deep. That means the roots are less able to get at moisture, he said. Wilhelm also said that if the federal government approves any grants to farmers as aid for the drought, it could take quite a while. Extension educators Martens and Mahoney said the same. The bureaucracy in which members of Congress spend so much time "trading horses" to come up with a decision doesn't help, Martens said. He gave an example of how the applications went earlier this summer from counties, including Mille Lacs and Benton, for disaster designation due to large amounts of winter kill of alfalfa. The application is stuck on a desk somewhere, waiting to be moved along, he said. "The farmer wakes up in April" to see dead alfalfa "and the cows are hungry in May" but any aid wouldn't be announced for months, said Martens. Martens and Mahoney said that often the only aid the federal government offers for ag disaster areas is low-interest loans and that farmers often don't want more debt. "Many times for the producer, that is little benefit," Mahoney said. Princeton Union-Eagle |