Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.Unseasonably warm weather has given flood-plagued farmers more time to remove debris and fill holes the swollen Missouri River left on their land.
But how productive that land turns out to be in 2012 and beyond remains to be seen.
For many farmers, including Kenny Hansen of rural Tekamah, Neb., sand deposited by receding floodwaters has left the ground looking more like a desertscape than a lush, productive field.
"There is no sign of anything ever (having) grown there," said Hansen, 50. "It's left so much sand on top of everything."
State Farm Bureau organizations have estimated that Iowa farmers suffered $207 million in losses related to flood-destroyed crops and Nebraska farmers lost $189 million.
The latest tallies for Nebraska and Iowa indicate the floodwaters damaged about 120,000 acres of cropland in Iowa and 82,720 in Nebraska, according to local offices of the Farm Service Agency.
Though it's hard to say how much of the formerly inundated farmland is salvageable, Dan Steinkruger, Farm Service Agency executive director for Nebraska, said he is optimistic.
"It's going to be a very high percentage that's going to be restored," he said.
The only areas where problems are expected to remain are those with the largest deposits of sand, Steinkruger said. Farmers have had to remove logs, fuel tanks and other debris and have used bulldozers to remove dunes of sand.
Rob Chatt, 34, another farmer in flood-damaged Burt County, said the sand remains a big concern — not just for what it does to soil, but also what it does when the wind whips it into the air.
"The problem will be getting the crops started without them getting sandblasted and killed," he said.
Chatt and Hansen described the mild winter as both a plus and a minus. It gave farmers more time to make repairs, but the lack of consistent winter moisture could come back to bite them in the spring.
"We're going to need moisture to get the stuff to start growing," Chatt said.
Hansen figured he could plant 95 percent or so of his 130 once-flooded acres this spring with corn. But he said he couldn't predict his chances for success.
"It's going to be a tricky spring, I think," he said. "It'll take a lot of luck."
Chatt agreed.
"We're going to try. I don't know what will happen, but we're going to try," he said. "We're to the point that's all we can do is try and see what happens."
Contact the writer: 402-444-1310, andrew.nelson@owh.com
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