Hurricane Francine damages crops, likely extends fall harvest

The impacts Hurricane Francine will have on the row crop farmers in the Delta after barreling through the state last week are still be tabulated, but its clear that a fast-moving harvest has been slowed significantly. The storm dropped up to nine inches of rain in spots throughout the region, according to the National Weather Service and winds gusted to 35 miles per hour.

“We received six to seven inches over four days,” said Matthew Davis, Jackson County extension staff chair. “Our largest concerns are the sprouting of crops in the field, loss of quality, and poor field conditions.”

Jarrod Hardke, extension rice agronomist for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, said when he visited several fields in Northeast Arkansas he was surprised the damage wasn’t more extensive. He said that some were “lodged” or flattened by the storm.

Lodged, or flattened rice takes longer to harvest. This, paired with the yield loss associated with sprouted rice, means rice growers are facing their already thin profit margins shrinking even more.

Hardke said parts of Poinsett, Cross and St. Francis counties seem to have taken the hardest hit.

“In some particular hotspots there is more significant lodging and rice sprouting on heads in the lodged rice,” Hardke said. “To a limited degree, there is even some rice sprouting on standing rice.”

Lodged rice will take longer to harvest.

“There’s a lot of economic impact to having downed rice,” said Nick Newberry, program associate for the Northeast Rice Research and Extension Center in Harrisburg. “Your harvest time in some situations doubles. The combine’s still rolling and you’re still burning diesel, but the acres you cut in that time is cut in half. If you even had a positive margin to start with, it’s now a break-even or a negative.”

Newberry said they were fortunate to get almost all rice at NERREC cut before the storm.

“Most of what we’ve got left is pretty much flat. It’s not very pretty,” Newberry said. “If this had just come two weeks later it would’ve been better, but that’s the risk you run in this industry.”

Cotton crops were damaged by the storm and two counties in Northeast Arkansas were hit particularly hard.

“The hardest hit areas seem to be around Jackson and Poinsett counties,” said Zachary Treadway, extension cotton and peanut agronomist for the Division of Agriculture. “In these areas, it was pretty common to see plants on the ends of rows laying over or at least leaning.”

Treadway said leaning plants should straighten up with time, but for plants completely blown over, those bolls can be expected to rot. As for open cotton bolls, Treadway said most of it is still pickable.

“Of the cotton that is open, I saw a fair amount of fiber drooping out of the bolls, but not a lot on the ground, surprisingly,” he said. “We can still pick that cotton as long as it is hanging on to the bolls.”

However, harvest may be further away than initially anticipated due to field conditions after the rain.

“I expect harvest to be a little delayed now,” Treadway said. “For producers who are ready to pick, they’ll have to wait for the ground to get dry enough to get pickers out in the field. For producers who are defoliating, they’ll either have to wait for the ground to dry enough to get a ground rig across it or hire a pilot to apply defoliants. I think this is going to push everything back.”

However, Treadway said the forecast sunshine will “do us a world of good if it shows up.”

Jeremy Ross, extension soybean agronomist for the Division of Agriculture, said the majority of the damage came in the form of sprouted soybeans.

“I was on the phone with county agents, farmers and crop consultants from the southeast to the northeast corners of the state about soybean seed sprouting in pods,” said Ross said. “Most of these calls are in fields that were ready to harvest prior to Francine, but I had a few calls about pods that are still green having sprouted seeds.”

Fortunately, Ross said this is isolated to just a small portion of pods on the soybean plants.

“Some fields with taller plants that haven’t reached maturity have lodged to some degree,” Ross said. “These fields could have some quality issues due to matted foliage and lack of air movement.”

Ross said the main focus now is to get these fields harvested, but harvesting in wet conditions brings issues of its own.

“We need to get these fields harvested as quickly as possible to avoid additional sprouting and dockage due to moldy seeds. To do this, some fields will need to be harvested before they are dry enough to avoid rutting the fields,” Ross said. “Fields that will be rutted will cost more once they dry out to get back into shape for planting next spring. Some will stay rutted until next spring, delaying planting.”

Jason Kelley, extension feed grains agronomist for the Division of Agriculture, said that although corn fields fared better than expected, there was substantial lodging in some areas and grain quality is a concern.

“We’re at the tail end of harvest so the corn that was left had been mature for three to four weeks, with the stalks getting more brittle every day. Every field had some plants blown over,” he said. “Some sprouting of grain in the shuck has occurred and those plants that are laying on the ground will likely see substantial sprouting and loss.”

Kelley said fortunately 84% of the state’s corn acres were harvested prior to Francine according to Monday’s crop progress report.

Although the majority of the state’s few grain sorghum acres had already been harvested, Kelley said there was substantial sprouting of the grain in heads.

“I think the full extent of the damage is still to be seen, especially in terms of grain quality. The level of discounts our growers will receive for reduced-quality grain is the big unknown right now,” Kelley said. “The forecast now looks warm and dry, so harvest will likely start up again in a few days.”

Kelley said wet field conditions and rutting of fields will cause an added expense for this crop.