Flood-Saturated Soil Will Mean Some Farmland Won’t Get Planted This Year

Statewide Iowa — Some Iowa farmers won’t have any crops to harvest this fall as they won’t be able to plant anything this spring due to the flood-soaked soil.

Meteorologist Dennis Todey, director of the U-S-D-A’s Midwest Climate Hub, based in Ames, says some areas of the state are still underwater and the farmland in those areas has been inundated.

Many fields are littered with debris left behind by the flooding, including trees, metal fuel tanks, pieces of structures, and all sorts of trash, but it’s the smaller stuff that will be harder to remove.

Millennia ago, giant glaciers helped to form the land now known as Iowa, but this spring, we saw a much smaller, much faster example.

Todey says all of that is beyond the damages to roads, bridges and culverts that will take time to repair. Spring flood damage in Iowa is estimated to exceed two-billion dollars.

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