(ETH) – A deadly hail storm just struck western Minnesota producing significant building and crop damage from Kandiyohi County to Nicollet County. According to the report, The storm produced wind speeds up to 50 miles an hour and at times dropped baseball-sized hail producing a blow for farmers when commodity prices are already down.
“We had a wonderful crop. Best we’ve had in this area in five years,” said Curt Burns, farmer and crop consultant. The hail storm was reportedly up to 60 miles long and six miles wide and completely decimated the crops.
“This affected thousands of acres of corn, soybeans, kidney beans, sugar beets, peas, sweet corn, and alfalfa,” said Burns. Acres upon acres were impacted and millions of dollars were lost. “The few leaves here are very tattered,” said Dave Nicolai of U of M Extension while he looked at the damaged corn.
“We have stalk breakage and bruising from hailstones themselves.” Corn wasn’t the only crop impacted, as a couple of hundred yards away soybeans were also impacted as well. “For this time of year, this is really significant,” according to Seth Naeve, a soybean agronomist for U of M Extension.
