Clear skies help speed statewide harvest; fields in Southeast Missouri still flooded

Farmers across much of the state took advantage of dry weather last week to continue harvesting row crops, but farms in Southeast Missouri are still assessing the damage from flooding rain, the Missouri Agricultural Statistics Service reported Monday.

"It's a devastating type of event," said Dickie Jordan, director of the Mississippi County office of the USDA Farm Service Agency.

The flooding affected a five-county area in the Bootheel. Mississippi County farmers may have suffered most, Jordan said.

Anthony Ohmes, an agronomy specialist at the University Missouri Extension Office in Mississippi County, said there was a significant loss of soybeans.

The county experienced a 14-inch rainfall over a 24-hour period a few weeks ago. That amount of rainfall is "unheard of in September," Ohmes said.

"There's been farmers who've been farming here forever, and they've never seen anything like this. Right now the issue is excessive amount of water backing up into fields," he said.

Rainfall was not as heavy in Cape Girardeau and Scott counties, said Terry Birk, director of the Cape Girardeau County office of the USDA Farm Service Agency.

"We got a good rain, but luckily we didn't get all the rain that our neighbors to the south got. We mainly had some localized flash flooding," he said.

Cape Girardeau County's USDA office estimated approximately 1,000 acres of 50 soybean farms were flooded. Of those acres, about 30 percent of soybeans were damaged.

"It was scattered out, and only affected those low-lying areas. The flooding really wasn't that big of a problem. We got really lucky," Birk said.

The Missouri Agricultural Statistics Service said 71 percent of the corn harvest is complete, three days ahead of last year and five days ahead of average. While 97 percent of the crop is now mature, the quality of yields varies widely across the state and even within specific regions.

Ninety-three percent of the soybean crop is turning color and 73 percent is dropping leaves, a pace that is behind last year but two days ahead of normal. The crop's condition is rated 7 percent very poor, 15 percent poor, 32 percent fair, 39 percent good and 7 percent excellent. The harvest is 11 percent completed, which is level with last year, but two days behind average.

The rice harvest is 70 percent complete, four or five days ahead of the average, while the cotton crop is only 9 percent complete, about a week behind normal. The cotton condition is rated at 4 percent very poor, 8 percent poor, 22 percent fair, 59 percent good and 7 percent excellent.

Southeast Missourian staff writer Jennifer Freeze contributed to this report.