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"The Dandelion Effect" Last month I focused on flooding and wind damage from Hurricane Gustav and how it might affect waterfowl hunting. My concerns were related to the crop damage/loss farm operations in south Arkansas, Louisiana and parts of Mississippi had taken. The crop-loss estimates were drastic enough that many farm operations, in hard hit areas, will lose money on their crops this year. I also mentioned damage NE AR might get from Hurricane Ike, which was swarming in the Gulf of Mexico at the time. While a person may not think about hurricanes hitting Arkansas, the tropical storms sometimes do and Ike spawned such a storm. NE AR didn't flood, but the wind damage was unbelievable. Trees were down, roofs blown off and minor damage all around the area, but the rice crop took a major hit. Many fields had rice scattered all over the field. While farmers are again taking a hard, financial hit on crop losses, the extra food supply may not be good for the duck hunters either. Take a look at these figures: When dealing with long grain, hybrid rice, some fields will average 200 bushels of rice per acre. Under ideal conditions, it would be reasonable to think a farmer might experience a 3% loss of crop. That loss is the duck food that falls on the ground. 3% of 200 bushels would be 6 bushels per acre. Rice weighs 45 lbs. per bushel, 6 times 45= 270 … that's 270 pounds of duck food per acre, at a 3% loss on a 200 BpA field. A 100-acre field, with that average, would result in just over 27,000 lbs. of rice spillage and that's considered normal. NOW, let's look at some harvest figures from this year. A lot of the modern combines have computers that calculate the harvest, in bushels, as it goes in the hopper. An area implement dealer and I were talking yesterday and he relayed a sad story to me. One of his clients was harvesting the day before Ike's windstorm hit. His computer was showing an average 170 to 175 bushel to the acre. Once the storm passed, he was only averaging 80 to 85 bushel per acre, from the same field. What happened? Exceptionally strong winds blew his seeds off the heads and that grain is laying on the ground, in the form of duck food. I also talked with another farm manager, who had just met with their crop insurance adjuster. The two of them were checking fields that had not been harvested, which brought up the question … how can they determine the loss? The manager and adjuster walked through several random areas of the fields they were checking. After a close check of the ground, they determined an area both men felt showed a good average amount of grain that had fallen to the ground. There, the adjuster placed a 12-inch square on the ground and they counted the number of kernels of the rice inside the square. 23 kernels of long grain rice, in a one square foot area, is calculated to be a loss of one bushel per acre. The fields they were checking had loss averages of 20 to 30 bushels per acre. To put things in perspective, take a sheet of standard notebook paper, which isn't a square foot, but will give you an idea of the area inside the adjuster's frame. Now place 23 beans on the sheet. If 23 kernels equal one bushel per acre, imagine what that notebook paper would look like with 690 kernels on it! 690 kernels would be the equivalent loss of 30 bushels per acre. These figures should give you an idea, as to the financial beating many of the farm operations are taking this year. Looking at these figures may also make you think the extra grain on the ground would be great for the duck hunters, who hunt rice fields, but that may not be the case either. Since none of the fields mentioned in this article have pits in them, I doubt they will ever be hunted. But what if they catch rainwater? In the case of the farmer who monitored his combine computer, before and after the wind; he indicated his loss was 80 or more bushels per acre. 80 times 45 pounds of rice per bushel = 3,600 pounds of scattered grain, per acre. If that figure held true on a 100 acre field, that would be 360,000 pounds of rice on the ground. When that field catches rain, the ducks will find it. To top off the duck/grain problem, not all fields had this type of damage. Damage depended on the variety of rice and what stage of growth the crop was in, when the wind hit. That's a tremendous difference, when you think about 360,000 pounds of grain in a field with no hunting, or tons less grain on the ground, in a field with hunting pressure! My point is … if you were a duck and you had this huge buffet at your disposal, with no hunting pressure on it … why would you leave? The term "Short-Stopping" is commonly used when hunters feel an area to their north is catching and holding birds before they get to them. It's not uncommon for NE Arkansas and SE Missouri to short-stop birds, at least for a while, from southern AR, LA and MS … but we normally don't consider it a local issue. With the crop loss, some farmers have experienced, short-stopping could be a serious issue for the southern part of the Mississippi Flyway, as well as the local area. An abundance of food, in areas where birds won't be hunted, will more than likely create new issues for the hunters. Will it change the outcome of the season? Who knows. Ducks are creatures of habit and I think they will return to the areas they use on a regular basis, but as hunting pressure is applied, they will look for safe haven, like they do when they load up in state and federal rest areas and refuges. The farmers can already calculate some of their losses, but the hunters won't know how the crop loss affected them, until the end of the season. But, there is one thing I do know and understand … The Dandelion Effect … has been a financial disaster for area farmers and I hope it doesn't end up the same way for the duck hunters! |
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