A wall of heavy dust swept across miles of central Illinois corn and soybean fields last Friday before blowing into parts of Chicago early that evening and finally settling on Lake Michigan.
The event marked only the second time that the Chicago office of the National Weather Service (NWS) has ever issued a dust storm warning. The first time occurred in May two years ago but did not include a warning for Chicago proper.
According to the NWS, the dust storm was birthed in the Bloomington, Ill., area, the result of 60 to 70 mph winds that blew across parched fields, picking up dirt and dry crop residue, as it traveled north.
Ken Ferrie, Farm Journal Field Agronomist, was working just outside Bloomington doing corn stand counts in fields that evening with Crop-Tech Consulting Agronomist Jared Bergan.
“We could see this stuff, the storm, rolling across the country a good 10 minutes before it got to where we were. It was nuts, looked like something out of the 1930s Dust Bowl, just a moving wall of dust,” says Ferrie.
Both of the men stopped to capture footage of the incoming storm on their phones before hunkering down in an ATV, where they waited for the wall of dust to pass by.
Push Pause On Post Herbicide Applications
After the storm, Ferrie says the corn crop they were in looked like it had just endured a hard frost. But instead of being covered with small ice crystals, plants were covered by a thin blanket of dirt.
“Some of these affected crops look pretty rough, but most of it’s cosmetic and they will come out of this and do fine. However, my recommendation to growers and retailers is to hold off making any post herbicide applications in corn or soybeans the next five, six days, until you see new growth,” Ferrie advises.
“Right now, these plants are under stress because the storm tore up their vascular system above ground. We don’t want to throw them further into a tailspin.”
Eric Beckett, an Illini FS field agronomist based in east-central Illinois, agrees and adds that even beneficial products or nutrients applied in a crop under good conditions can create some degree of stress because the plants have to work to metabolize the product.
“We really can’t make educated recommendations for another few days yet, because we need to evaluate the new growth in affected crops,” Beckett told Farm Journal on Tuesday.
Most of the corn in Beckett’s region is currently in the V2 to V3 growth stage, which he said was a positive for area farmers.
“Now, if we were at V4 or V5 when this storm happened, I would be a lot more concerned about the corn. By V5 the growing point is completely out of the ground, and the plant is starting to determine ear size in that time frame,” Beckett explains.
The Windiest Spring On Record
Wind has been an ongoing issue across the U.S. this spring, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center reports there’s a high probability of windy conditions continuing the next couple of weeks, particularly across the central and eastern regions of the country.
In the short-term, while most farmers have crossed the finish line on 2025 planting, many will be returning to fields to cultivate crops and make various product applications. Beckett wants retailers and farmers to plan these practices so they can be accomplished with less potential issues resulting from wind.
“In this new era with the kind of unexpected weather events we’ve had the past few years, we need to do a gut check and ask ourselves if our farming practices still work well in the type of environment we’re working in these days,” he says.
That concern is warranted, as the United States has experienced a significant number of wind storms and severe weather events, including tornadoes, derechos, and widespread damaging winds already this year.
A derecho on April 29 caused widespread damage across parts of Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York, with wind gusts nearing 80 mph in some areas, in what AccuWeather meteorologists called the “first derecho of the year.”
Moving forward, some of Beckett’s recommendations for retailers and farmers include:
- Read and follow pesticide labels and understand wind limitations.
- Understand best management practices for sprayers and nutrient applicators concerning windy conditions.
- Growers and/or ag retail should avoid pressuring applicators to make applications in less-than-ideal conditions.
- Applicators should stay aware of changing weather conditions and avoid less than ideal conditions.
- Good documentation of both pesticide and nutrient applications is key if applications are ever questioned due to adverse windy conditions.
Beckett offers some additional recommendations in his recent article, Time to Rethink Tillage and Spray Applications for Windier Springs.
Long-term, Ferrie encourages farmers to evaluate what they can change next spring to reduce production risks due to windy conditions.
“We can’t change the weather, but we can change how we do things, how much cover we leave on the ground,” Ferrie says. “A high-speed disc for tillage makes a nice seed bed, but it leaves you unprotected. A soil finisher can do the same thing [with less risk]. As an industry, we need to think harder about what we’re doing so we can keep storms like this one from happening again.”
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