The Wabash River topped a levee in west central Indiana the week of Aug. 17 and almost instantly flooded hundreds of acres of corn and soybeans. In Illinois, some counties experienced straight line winds in excess of 90 mph which flattened some cornfields. A dairy farmer in Ohio had his barn destroyed and his silo toppled by a tornado and then heavy rains moved in, flooding fields.

The weeks of Aug. 10 and Aug. 17 saw multiple storms move through Illinois, Indiana and Ohio as well as parts of Michigan. Towns in Indiana saw 16 inches of rain in 24 hours. The White River crested in Anderson, Ind., at 24.93 feet, more than a foot higher than a record set in 1913.

Governors in Indiana, Illinois and Ohio declared emergencies.  How much damage farmers experienced to crops may not be known until harvest. Loss will depend on how long water stays in fields with forecasters saying the rest of August may still be wetter than normal.

“Parts of Perry County, Ohio, had 10 inches of rain one day and five more inches the following day,” said Ted Wiseman, OSU Extension Specialist in that county. “We were flooded twice. We were hit by both the winds and the rain. As mature as our crops are right now, I doubt that they’ll bounce back up as they would if they were younger. We have bean and corn fields flattened. At least half the farmers in our county were affected by the storms, and to different degrees. Morgan and Muskingum counties were hit pretty hard as well.”

Farmer Mark Parkman of Westville, Ind., said a small percentage of his corn plants on the outer edges of his fields had their stalks snapped below the ears and were left leaning.

Parkman said he hasn’t been deeper into his crops yet to know if there’s any similar damage toward the center of his fields but doubts it since the outside plants usually take the brunt of the winds.

Illinois is leading the nation with around 204 verified tornadoes (according to the National Weather Service) after the Aug. 13-16 storm period.

Luckily, the news is not all bad.

According to Lindsay Mitchell, communications director for Illinois Corn, most central Illinois producers she has spoken with since Aug. 16 were reporting little lasting crop damage from August storms, though some were expressing concern over excess rainfall that followed an extended dry period.

The longer the fields stay saturated, and the roots begin to get less oxygen, the more problematic it is going to be from a yield perspective, said Alexander Lindsey, Ohio State University associate professor of crop ecophysiology and agronomy. A lot of the yield implications are going to depend on how long the fields are waterlogged or flooded.

“It seems like (for soybeans) when flooding occurs for four days, or longer, like seven to 10 days, that is when we see yields decrease substantially,” Lindsey said. “If the fields are flooded or waterlogged for four days or fewer, yield implications will be less dramatic.”

Corn is sort of the opposite of soybeans, he explained. It is really sensitive to waterlogging and flooding earlier in the season, particularly from an early growth standpoint, but also the nitrogen availability. There will be some nitrogen loss with flooding, which could limit grain yield.

“But by the time the corn gets into the reproductive stages, it tends to be pretty tolerant,” Lindsey said. “Seven days of waterlogging or flooding can reduce yield by maybe 7 to 15 percent compared to larger losses which you could experience earlier in the season.”

However, much depends on the intensity of the rain or the wind – the directionality could potentially affect plants in different ways, Lindsey said. If the plant breaks off below the ear, that is called greensnap, and that can be damaging to yield. 

“If they’re not drying out, ear disease development is more likely because of the wet, close conditions of those plants,” Lindsey said. “There could also be soil contamination, which could lead to issues with marketability.”

Farmers should also go out and check the fields now, Lindsey said. Check the soil, check the plants for standability.

Finally, Lindsey said: “Sometimes things look really bad. But there may be some potential for those crops to rebound slightly. There’s still a chance.”

Back in Indiana, Packman said his corn and soybeans were already struggling to a certain extent from the wet spring and the wet growing season before the storm.

“It’s not going to be a bumper crop. It hasn’t been all year long in my book. It’s just one more thing that’s going to hinder the crop in our area,” he said.

In Morgan and Muskingum counties in Ohio, severe crop losses have been reported. Extension specialists in those counties report 50 percent yield losses in some cases, with extensive damage to fields containing sweet corn, peppers and tomatoes. Flooding, they said, forced an end to the growing season for some growers.

Farmers in Ohio’s southeastern counties saw a lot of damage from winds and rain. T.J. Wells, OSU Extension educator in Washington County, said it stunned growers in his county as they were not used to such violent weather.

“We had three tornadoes during that time and that’s not normal for our part of the state,” Wells said. “We had a pair of EF2s and one EF1 that touched ground, and the National Weather Service said they occurred all at one time, just not the same place.

“A lot of bean fields and corn fields have been flooded and we’ve even had some flattened corn. The standing water has damaged a lot of hay,” Wells said.

Dave Nessley, with Nessley’s Farm Market, in Perry County, Ohio, spent time wading in his flooded pumpkin fields trying to salvage that crop. Nessley said the storms might have destroyed 50 percent of his pumpkin crop.

The latest rounds of storms led Illinois Governor JB Pritzker to issue a state disaster proclamation on Aug. 18.

It was noted in Pritzker’s proclamation that Marshall County had experienced damaging straight-line winds of up to 90 mph, two tornadoes (at least one with hail up to 1.75 inches in diameter), extreme rainfall amounts, flooding of the Illinois River and tributaries, damage to homes and infrastructure and power outages. Also mentioned were Kane County, where four rounds of severe rainfall and flooding occurred over three days in July, Alexander and Pulaski counties, where flash flooding occurred, Cook and eastern Will counties for excessive straight-line wind damage, and several other counties where damage from derechos and other verified weather events was recorded.

The following Farm World Correspondents contributed to this article: Tim Alexander, Celeste Baumgartner, Doug Graves and Stan Maddux.