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March 26, 2019Missouri River Basin |  By: Molly Gardner

2019 crop year on-hold for some farmers along the river

Flooding along the Missouri River basin may put the 2019 crop year on-hold for farmers along the river.  Multiple levee breaches, now more than 40 between Kansas City, Missouri and Council Bluffs, Iowa, have flooded large portions of the river bottom in a four-state area.

Dylan Rosier is a Missouri Corn Growers Association board member and farmer from Mound City, Missouri. He says the outlook is grim for many farmers along the river bottom.

"It doesn't paint a good picture for the guys in the bottom right now.  The levee won't be fixed for a long period of time, through the summer even.  Even if it would dry out, you're still looking at huge risk of water getting back out to the bottom again.  More than likely, the river will still be high through spring.  And even if the surface water gets off, our water table will still be really high and we won't be able to bring the subsoil moisture in a very timely fashion."

Rosier says getting fields back into production quickly after flooding takes the right location in relation to flood waters, and a little luck.

"It largely just depends on how close you were to a break.  A lot of times, floods like this will deposit sediment or sand in areas or completely cover some fields.  So it's just kind of a crapshoot how bad of a shape you'll end in.  But if you just had backup water in it, a lot of times, it just takes time.  It's got to dry out and then you can go in and work it down and try to get ready for plant again."

Rosier's family farm is primarily in the hill ground along the river bottom, but some acreage along the edge of the bottom ground was at-risk for flooding this week.