It was bad enough Illinois farmers affected by the May 16 dust storm saw priceless topsoil blow off their fields and into the hinterlands. Adding insult to injury, many corn and soybean growers now face not only damaged or destroyed crops but will need to reapply fertilizer and herbicide products in some scenarios, says Ken Ferrie, Farm Journal Field Agronomist.
“If you ever tried to imagine what the Dust Bowl was like in the 1930s all you had to do was be in central Illinois that Friday afternoon,” Ferrie says. “You didn’t need your imagination to experience the Dust Bowl, you got to live it. Now, granted, it was only a few hours long. But it blew soil, it blew residue, it blew trees over, did property damage in some areas, and some of our most precious, McLean County soil was deposited in Lake Michigan.”
Not only McLean County topsoil went north to Chicago and beyond. Ferrie is concerned recent surface-applied herbicides and nitrogen were likely blown away with the soil and residue, too.
“Some of these fields that were sprayed that did not receive a rain to move it into the soil and get it activated are at risk now,” he explains. “We’ll need to keep an eye on these fields for weed escapes and the loss of nitrogen. We can make some estimates on the nitrogen losses with nitrate testing, but herbicide losses will only show up in weed escapes.”
Additional Consequences From The Storm
Ferrie, who is based just south of Bloomington, Ill., reports the dust storm generated a number of farmer requests, calls asking him to come inspect fields for crop damage. He notes that affected cornfields looked like they received a hard frost. With soybeans, some fields had plants sheared off at the ground level.
“In most cases with corn, I saw mainly cosmetic damage, and the corn will bounce back,” Ferrie says. “But in cases where the corn was covered up by dust, the crop will not come back, and it’ll need to be replanted. This occurred mainly where grass strips worked like a snow fence and the dirt piled up on the corn. In some areas buried in residue, we may need to burn that off the field before we can replant.”
Farmers who want to apply fertilizer or herbicides will benefit from holding off making any spray applications until affected crops show signs of a robust recovery, primarily in the form of new growth, he adds.
“Growth out of the whorl tells you that things are getting back on track,” Ferrie says. “We e do want to apply [herbicides] based on weed height, but this would be one time where I would put a pause on it and let this corn recover before we come back in with our post applications.”
Third Consecutive Year Of Spring Dust Storms In Illinois
Rains totaling 1” to 3” in the days following the storm, helped replenish soil moisture levels and start the recovery process in some affected corn and soybean crops.
But Ferrie points out that the dust storm marked the third year in a row such an event has swept through parts of Illinois, and the storms have cast a bad light on production agriculture in the region.
“Guys, we need to step back and take a minute to evaluate what we just witnessed,” Ferrie says. “Our soil went a quarter mile in the air, blew all the way to Chicago, closing roads and causing accidents.”
Such risks and consequences from dust storms are garnering more critical attention from the general public and scientists.
A 10-year study done by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and published by the American Meteorological Society in 2023, found a total of 232 deaths occurred from windblown dust events between 2007 through 2017.
“We found that dust events caused life losses comparable to events like hurricanes and wildfires in some years,” says Daniel Tong, research scientist at NOAA and an associate professor of Atmospheric Oceanic and Earth Sciences at George Mason University, in a news release. “Greater awareness could reduce crashes and possibly save lives.”
Haboobs, another term for intense dust storms, can occur anywhere in the U.S., but are most common in the Southwest, according to the National Weather Service. El Paso, Texas, has seen 10 in 2025 alone, reports Inside Climate News.
Two other recent examples of severe dust storms include:
March 3 – a crash involving 11 vehicles on Interstate 10 occurred near Albuquerque, N.M., left three people dead. Authorities there say heavy dust storms contributed to the crash by severely limiting visibility.
March 14 – Kansas Highway Patrol officials reported eight fatality victims from an Interstate 71-vehicle pileup that occurred during a dust storm.
Fortunately, no fatalities were reported as a result of the Illinois dust storm that occurred May 16.
Calls For Action To Reduce Dust Storm Numbers
A number of individuals and organizations in Illinois are calling for agronomic practices that will prevent or limit such events in the future. One of those is Robert Hirschfeld, Director of Water Policy at Prairie Rivers Network, an independent, state affiliate of the National Wildlife Federation
“These are man-made ecological disasters, driven by a form of agriculture that exploits and depletes the land, leaving millions of acres of soil exposed and eroding for half the year,” Hirschfeld said in a statement distributed three days after the Illinois storm. “We can’t keep farming this way.”
Hirschfeld wants the issue to be addressed formally via legislative action: “If we want real change, we have to move beyond voluntary conservation and start requiring practices that keep soil in place and pollution out of our water.”
Steps Farmers Can Take
While no one can control the weather, farmers can adjust their management practices to reduce the risk of dust storms, according to Illinois Extension. A logical first step is to reduce the number of tillage passes, especially in fields adjacent to busy highways, to begin moving toward conservation tillage.
Additionally, increased soil productivity can be achieved through reduced erosion, enhanced water infiltration, and decreased water evaporation during dry periods, according to the USDA Managing Crop Residues in Corn and Soybeans research report.
Ferrie says many of the farmers he works with are “great stewards of their land and are able to keep their soils in place.”
He advocates using a systems approach in production agriculture that will protect vulnerable soils and other resources (see A System for Every Soil).
“There are many tools in the toolbox we can use to accomplish this,” he says. “We can work together to implement practices that will eliminate [dust storms] from happening in the future.”
Check out Ferrie’s latest Boots In The Field podcast to hear his specific recommendations and additional insights.
