Hail hurts, but the glass is still half full

By Richard C. Snell

Barton County Extension Agent, agriculture

Our glass is still more than half full! Recently, we have had some devastating hail damage to crops in our area. But, compared to places like Chapman, Manhattan and Salina, we have had it fairly good in the Golden Belt area in terms of storm damage.

I have been accused of sometimes being a pessimist and seeing the glass of water as half empty instead of half full so I am trying to be an optimist and see the bright side of things.

We did have some minor tornado damage in extreme northeastern Barton County, with that storm complex that went all the way from somewhere southwest of Otis and LaCrosse, all the way to Soldier, which is northwest of Holton. That is a long storm track. It was most reminiscent of the Protection to Greensburg to Macksville to Claflin tornado of last year.

Our biggest loss this year locally, has been from straight wind and hail damage, as well as soil erosion and compaction. Last year, it was from tornadoes and flooding.

I want to discuss the crop situation with the potential we have and realistically tell you some of the good, bad and ugly.

First, we have tremendous yield potential on the wheat, especially east of Highway 281. West of 281, it is more erratic but, still close to an average crop. That is, before you consider any hail or disease loss.

We have had significant hail losses in the Beaver, Olmitz, Galatia, Claflin and Dundee areas. Early on, clear back in April, we had two hail storms come through Ellinwood. Both were only pea to marble sized hail, but one of the storms packed 50 to 60 miles per hour (mph) wind with it. The wheat was smashed down, but, since it wasn't headed out yet, it had time to recover.

On June 5, the last time we had significant rain in Ellinwood (we had an inch in my gauge), hail did some damage around Dundee. That was the storm that hit around noon and only affected roughly the southeast half of the county. The worst was from just south into Stafford County on Highway 281 over to near Dundee. There was up to 100 percent loss on some wheat, at least one center pivot was turned over, and several corn and soybean fields had to be re-planted.

That was the storm that had two waves that I encountered. They really were waves. I was sitting at the Dairy Queen in Hoisington eating lunch when the first wave came and it was one of those where it all came sideways. The rain was coming down in sheets and the wind was blowing 50 mph. Later, I was at the 4-H Building, 5 miles south and got into another wave with nearly similar results. You couldn't see the roadway and when I was out of the vehicle for only one minute I got drenched loading some tables. Four miles west or north of there they got nothing. So the rain and hail has been spotty.

Another storm came with the north central tornadoes on Wednesday evening, June 11. A band from near Otis, between Olmitz and Galatia, through Beaver was wiped out 100 percent in a four mile wide band. Another 2 miles on either side was hit about 50 percent and then maybe 10 percent another 2 miles. This amounted to conservatively figuring, at least 10,000 acres of wheat. It is more likely 20,000 acres. When you figure that we raise about 200,000 acres of wheat in Barton County and that is one of our primary areas because they don't grow a lot of other crops in that area. At an average loss of 30 bushels per acre, that's 300,000 bushels times $8 per bushel (it's actually higher than that) which amounts to 2.4 million dollars just on the wheat in one storm.

About 4 inches of rain fell in the hail belt. I had 4 inches also. Only mine was 4 hundredths of an inch. The heavy rain that fell did little good except it allowed ponds to fill up due to excessive run-off. It packed the ground and may have prevented emergence on some milo and soybeans.

Another hail storm hit south of Claflin during the morning of June 16. It rained hard for about an hour from southwest of Great Bend through the Cheyenne Bottoms and south of Claflin. I had less than .20-inch in Ellinwood. The hail damage was confined to an area about 5 miles by 3 miles.

In case you were wondering, to date, we have about 10 percent hail damage on each of our county wheat plots in the Galatia and Claflin area.

Two questions of information or points of conversation were brought up during the storms. One concerned the amount of rain that actually made it into the rain gauge when the wind blew it sideways. I bring this up because there were some reports of up to 2 inches in Ellinwood when it got its storm. But, I only had an inch. However my gauge is on the east side of the house and it is true that just like during a blizzard snow, unless you could average several locations, it may not be accurate. In the case of rain, if you had a gauge in an open field with no growing crops or trees, then it may be accurate. In most rainfall events the angle of the rain with the wind would not be so severe that it would matter.

The second point is that the speed of the wind made more difference in crop damage than the size of the hail. I talked to farmers who said there was golf ball to tennis ball sized hail with very little damage because it came straight down. But where the wind was driving it, that's where everything was flattened.

Some of the bright spots for wheat growers are that we have great grain prices, had timely spring rains and nice grain filling conditions. Another plus is that the fertilizer cost and fuel price associated with wheat weren't nearly as expensive when we planted as they are now.

6/30/08
1 Star WK\10-B

Date: 6/26/08

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