Iowa farmer Matthew Kruse questions whether a derecho came through his fields this week, but he is closely watching the corn fields for evidence of lodging as a result of the heavy winds
Weather authorities, who say derechos are always determined after the weather event, reported the heavy winds whipped through South Dakota and parts of Iowa Monday night.
In this video, Kruse talks about the scary weather event – during which winds may have reached 130 miles per hour – and talks about property damage and crop impacts in the aftermath.
One area that wasn’t impacted: futures prices.
“And so, the markets, for the most part, shrugged it off,” Kruse says. He noted the market ultimately traded down Tuesday, the morning after the high winds below through a crop that’s expected to break yield records across the country.
Most would expect this potentially damaging weather to at least cause a market wobble, but corn prices stay low on the expectation that the U.S crop continues to exceed yield trendline and will roll in record-breaking production numbers at harvest.
A resilient, healthy crop
On Kruse’s farm, he reports some lodging but is hoping crop impact is limited. Kruse includes a photo of some of his corn and says this: “It might cause a little bit of a challenge at harvest, but I think given time, some of that will … stand back up.”
Across the area, Kruse says, “damage seems more limited to just property damage, things of that nature, some roof damage, things like that.”
Kruse is checking in with fellow farmers and those associated with Commstock Investments, the Kruse family’s risk management and brokerage firm. “I talked to one producer that had some of their shade ripped off of their feed lots,” he says, “but at the same time saying that they didn't really experience any crop damage.”
Hear more from Kruse’s first-hand report on FarmFutures.com.