2012 drought: A glimpse at its impact and lessons
Back to Leopold Letter Fall 2012
Sally Gran - Jerry Peckumn - Dan Specht - Rick Juchems - Linda Grice - Tom Wagner - Jennifer Steffen - Maury Wills
Some natural disasters happen in an instant. A tornado rips through a farmstead, the clouds clear and you can assess the damage. Others are painfully slow, invisible and widespread, their impacts felt for months and even years.
That’s what Iowans experienced after the hottest July since 1936 and drought conditions throughout the state moved from “severe” to “extreme” to “exceptional.” Crops withered and died. Livestock numbers fell. Federal disaster assistance was offered to farmers in more than 1,800 counties in 38 states.
Drought affects farmers in countless ways, yet conditions may vary from one farm to another, from one day to the next. Rather than a big-picture view, we offer a perspective from those closest to the land, those who have had to watch, worry and wait through the season.
Leopold Center graduate research assistant Melissa Lamberton talked with these farmers. She asked them how the drought has affected them, and if they could, what they would change in their operations next year.
Sally Gran, TableTop Farm
The farm: TableTop Farm is a 150-member Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) operation near Nevada, in its second year transitioning to organic. It is owned and operated by two families, Sally and Luke Gran and Chris and Kim Corbin. They grow 15 acres of vegetables and their farm includes natural habitat and buffers.
The drought: “We’ve been really lucky, but it’s been expensive. We’ve spent several thousand dollars setting up and maintaining irrigation. A number of crops were lower quality than they would have been. Early in the season the lettuce was weak and couldn’t defend itself so all the pests descended on it. At the height of the drought we had problems with our peppers with blossom end rot. Any that were allowed to mature rotted on the vine, because calcium uptake was inhibited by drought. It was so hot, the crops really needed three inches of rain a week instead of the usual inch and a half. We were irrigating around the clock. You’d feel under the black plastic mulch and it would still be dry, even though it seemed like we were dumping water into it. We never transplanted the hot peppers because we couldn’t get the soil moist enough, and some cover crops we never had a chance to seed. There were some positive effects. We haven’t had as much disease in our tomatoes, and we didn’t have many onions rot. The melons have tasted great, which is an effect of not being overwatered and warm temperatures. We also haven’t had as much anxiety about drift from aerial application of pesticides, because fungal disease has not been as great of a threat for row crop farmers."
The future: “We’ve been thinking about some sort of backup plan for irrigation, for when the creek runs dry. Currently, we are irrigating from a lake located about a mile from our farm. We’ve realized how important it is to have money saved up for things like this. It makes us appreciate our CSA model even more, because of the insurance it provides. Our members pay before the season starts, regardless of what the weather does. The CSA members stick with us in a bad year, but they help us pull through to the next year, which will hopefully bring with it an abundance of produce. They pay in no matter what, and the farmer does their best. That prevents us from going under financially.”
Photo of Sally Gran by Dennis Chamberlin
Jerry Peckumn, Peckumn Farm
The farm: Jerry Peckumn and his son Tom run a conventional corn-soybean operation in the Raccoon River watershed on about 2,000 acres.
The drought: “We were concerned early this spring about the low soil moisture, so we applied most of our nitrogen fertilizer at planting – we normally apply in June, but we applied it right before planting to make sure it moved into the root zone. That turned out to be a good decision. We had a cover crop. We may have left it alive too long using up moisture we could have used later so next year would terminate in very early spring if it stays abnormally dry. We decided not to buy cattle as it got drier and cattle prices were very high. We had a beautiful corn and soybean crop in June and went ahead and marketed corn ahead, because we have crop revenue insurance. We will continue to market ahead but use options more and direct sales contract less. We’re going to have a very short crop, maybe half, I’m not sure. I try to keep track of how much rain we have after the fall crop matures-we had only 3-4 inches available for crops in the soil last spring and very little now. We will be careful with fall tillage but the conditions are good for shattering any compacted areas with the right equipment."
The future: “You can’t predict what the weather’s going to be for next year. We have very little subsoil moisture. We’ll do everything we can to conserve the subsoil moisture we have. We probably won’t really alter our farming operations [in response to the drought]. The farm plan has to be based on longer-term weather averages. We won’t want to have any weeds growing. We may try cover crops on a limited experimental basis only, unless we get some nice rains early in the fall. We may look at planting more soybeans of later maturity because they tend to need less water early in the season and wait longer for rains, but that all depends on the price ratio since the market is telling us to raise corn."
Dan Specht, Prairie Quest Farms
The farm: Dan produces grass-finished beef on 700 acres of pasture, forest and row crops in northeast Iowa.
The drought: “In some ways recently I’ve had the best grazing year I’ve ever had. Because of the warm March weather, the grazing season started a whole month early. I’ve had one month less of winter feeding I had to do. My soils, especially on the ridge top, have good water-holding capacity and alfalfa crops have been productive this year. I do not grow too many row crops so I haven’t suffered like most of my neighbors with worrying about pollination and bean pods filling out. On the side hills soils can get pretty thin with shallow and exposed bedrock. Soils in those places did burn up. So far I’ve missed the worst of it. If you look at the rainfall on the map, some of those rains I got in July only covered one pixel on the screen. You don’t have to go very far at all into Wisconsin and people are having lots worse trouble.”
The future: “We’re looking at going into the winter with soil moisture all depleted. It will be a challenge next year unless we get good recharge. I was farming during some dry years in ’88 and ‘89, and ‘89 was the year that the springs dried up and you could see exactly where the cracks were in the bedrock because that’s the only place there was a green strip in the hayfield. So I’m worried about next year a lot more than this year. I don’t have any way to get federal crop insurance that made any sense for me. I’m just an observer but I think grazing is less risky, and more resilient, with more options for reacting to drought.”
Photo of Dan Specht (on right, in blue shirt) by Practical Farmers of Iowa
Rick Juchems, Butler/Bremer County
The farm: Rick has a corn-soybean rotation in northeast Butler County and northwest Bremer County. He also has 2,400 head of hogs and 2,000 head of cattle.
The drought: “I farm some sandier soil or lighter soil and they’ve been burned up since the first part of August. The areas just keep spreading, getting bigger and browner. The soybeans have hung in better; they seem to be more drought-tolerant. We’ll see at harvest how they’re doing. Corn is going to be OK. We have federal crop insurance. We’ll go from there, and see what happens. Just feeling like you can’t do anything -- you work hard, and you can smell it at night, corn is just burning up. It never cools off at night. It’s almost like fall, that dead corn smell in the air. It’s hard looking at it and thinking, this could’ve been a pretty good year and now hopefully we’ll just be able to make payments.”
The future: “My no-till hung in there much longer than minimum-till. I use minimum-till because I put hog manure down in the fall and level it off in spring with a field cultivator. Without the cover to keep the moisture in, the drought effects showed up a lot faster. Cover seemed to keep the moisture in and the temperature down. The ground didn’t get as hot, and any moisture that fell seemed to stay there longer. I know for sure next year I won’t do any corn-on-corn. It’s all going to be in rotation. I think it’s supposed to be dry again next year, that’s what they’re predicting, so we’ll go at it that direction and see what happens. It’s probably the worst drought I’ve experienced. ‘88 was bad but this one is worse. It’s a learning experience. I guess we’ll see what we can do next year to keep the moisture in there and the crops growing. It’s amazing that the corn crop is doing as well as it’s done. I think the genetics that are out there now survive a lot better than even just ten years ago.”
Photo of Rick Juchems and daughter Liz (courtesy of Rick Juchems)
Linda Grice, Grice Family Farms
The farm: Linda Grice rents her farm in southwest Iowa. She has organic and non-organic row crops and rotationally grazed beef cattle.
The drought: “It started off to be the best crop ever, and all of a sudden it got too dry. Now it’s better than some places, but it’s not good. There wasn’t really anything you could do at all.”
The future: “I’ve already talked to my tenant and they’re going to put rye cover crops on this fall as soon as the crops are out, and I think that will help hold moisture and increase organic matter. Actually I made the change earlier because the tenants had tilled more than I was happy with; I had talked to them about this. We’re going to have cover crops and we’re going to be no-till.”
Tom Wagner, O’Brien County
The farm: Tom and Jim Wagner grow corn and soybeans and have a hog finishing operation. They farm 1,800 acres in O’Brien County.
The drought: “Obviously we’re going to have fewer crops to harvest than we’ve had the last few years, but we’re fortunate. Most of our farming operation did get full recharge here this spring, as far as our subsoil moisture goes. That’s helped us a lot. We’ve had a couple of timely rains in June and July, not big rains, but more than some areas not far from us. Our crop is faring pretty well. Between our soils holding a lot of water and being full the first of June, that’s helped us a lot. We have a better crop in northwest Iowa where we’re at than anywhere between here and Des Moines. Just the amount of heat we’ve had alone will be adverse to our yields.”
The future: “We feel our no-till has helped us quite a bit, kept our crops greener a little longer; we conserved as much moisture as we could early on. So we’ll stay the course there. We’ll be short of moisture next spring unless the weather changes a bunch. We’re doing as much as we can to save moisture. We’ve got to be optimistic.”
Jennifer Steffen, Steffen Family Farm
The farm: Jennifer Steffen owns part of a larger family farming operation in Van Buren County. Her sons Ben and Spencer grow corn, soybeans and hay, and have 120 head of purebred Angus cattle in a cow-calf herd. The majority of the calves will be sold early this fall as feeder calves.
The drought: “It’s been a big worry for feedstuff for the winter. They’ve got paddock systems and have been rotating the cows as often as they can, but they’re very short on pasture. The pastures are not over stocked so they haven’t had to reduce the herd , so they’re better off than a lot of folks down in the area. The row crops are really, really poor this year, corn especially. The beans have benefited from late rains but the corn – it’s running anywhere from 20 to 180 bushels per acre, depending on where it is on the landscape. The only benefit is that it’s drying quickly but they’re anticipating jumping out there as soon as possible to harvest because stalk integrity is really poor, and they’re afraid it will go down if we have a bunch of rainfall and wind. Lots of mature trees are suffering and a number of them are dying in our area—white oak, sugar maple, even locust trees. People who were constructing ponds this summer had a hard time packing the dams. They were going down 15 or 20 feet as they were coring the ponds site and not running into any moisture, even that far down. It’s ugly—everything desiccated, just dry, no rain for months.”
The future: “It’s been a long time since we’ve had a drought of this intensity. The boys are probably going to seed more end rows with meadow so they’ve got a buffer zone and the ability to use it for cattle feed. The end rows have suffered terribly with the drought. They’ll forfeit a little bit of row crop to plant more meadow in those areas. They might consider more intense management of their pasture. It would be better to have the pasture split into more paddocks—that would involve building fence but I think they would consider that in the future. I think their crops also have benefited because it’s been 100 percent no-till since 1980 and water has been able to percolate down. A layer of humus on top kept the soil from drying out as early as neighbors’ maximum tillage acres. We feel we’ve weathered the drought as well as we could hope for.”
Photo: Jennifer Steffen
Maury Wills, Wills Family Orchard
The farm: The Wills Family Orchard includes 60 acres in Dallas County, with four acres in apple trees and a three-acre pumpkin patch. The farm was certified organic in 2000 and includes an on-farm store.
The drought: “The biggest impact we had, that we know of so far, was the freeze we had in early April, where we lost all of our apples. It would be easier to see what the drought has done if we had apples going into it, but we didn’t. Some of our newly planted trees have died. We had to water, and there was a period of time when we didn’t get that done. We lost some mature trees as well, probably four or five of the Chieftain variety. They were affected by the warm winter and then the cold freeze in April, and I think the drought finished them off. We decided to irrigate pumpkins this year—we weren’t planning on it, and had to go through the expense of putting in another hydrant, but we got a great pumpkin crop. The real story on the apple trees isn’t going to be told until next year, when we see how the fruit bud development went this year.”
The future: “The trees that were the most heavily mulched with woodchips really did quite well, and the trees without mulch seemed to not do as well. That’s most pertinent to our dwarf varieties, which aren’t rooted as deeply. If we know we’re going into a drought again, we’ll make sure that we mulch all those dwarf trees adequately. Another thing I would do is drip irrigation on the dwarf trees.”
Photo: Maury Wills
Back to Leopold Letter Fall 2012
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