Field 2 Field - Part 2

April 27, 2022April 27, 2022

Port Slowdowns Continue – What’s Behind the Congestion

Port slowdowns are still clogging up the nation’s supply chains, and it’s a big problem to solve. Ray Bowman is Director of the Small Business Development Center of Santa Barbara and Ventura counties in Southern California. He’s also the program chair for the District Export Council of Southern California. The business veteran and trade consultant said things have improved a bit but only on one side of the import-export equation.

“Many things are going on to help with the port slowdowns,” he said on the phone from his office in Camarillo, California. “Most of us have seen the news footage of ships backed up and waiting to unload their cargo. A big part of the backup is the unprecedented buying demand we saw during COVID-19.”

He says the Biden administration moved to get the nation’s ports operating on a 24-hour basis or, at least, get that framework in place to help relieve congestion. Bowman says it’s helped somewhat on the import side of the business, where he says things are about 30 percent better than before.

“Unfortunately, I don’t see that it’s improved on the export side,” Bowman says. “So that’s been tough on American shippers who need to move their goods overseas.

“We knew there would be a significant increase in buying during COVID-19,” he said. “Up until recently, we haven’t seen much of a slowdown in purchasing. Companies are likely still trying to fill orders backlogged for months.”

Ray Bowman is an international trade consultant from southern California with over 30 years of experience. (Photo from edcollaborative.com)

With so much demand for containers on the import side, it’s very difficult for shippers to simply find export containers to load their goods in. Companies started focusing more and more on the import side because they were making so much more money.

When it comes to export containers, fewer goods are leaving the country, so it tends to be cheaper to purchase export containers. They aren’t worth as much to the steamship lines as the larger volume of goods coming into the country. “Because of the demand for imports, steamship companies put all their space availability on the import side,” he said. “They didn’t pay as much attention to the export side, making containers much harder to find.

“The price of those containers is another limiting factor,” Bowman said. “As demand increased, the price shot higher at an unprecedented rate. We knew the price would increase because those costs have gotten suppressed in recent years, but we didn’t expect it to climb by ridiculously huge amounts.”

Limited amounts of containers and exorbitantly high prices hit the small and medium-sized companies harder than the larger businesses. He said the larger companies have economies of scale built into their business structures. Many typically have contracts for consistent shipping availability and trucking services regularly available.

“Small and medium companies buy their services primarily off the spot market,” Bowman said. “So, those higher prices hit those companies even harder than their larger competitors. These things like container shortages haven’t come out of the blue. This has been going on for some time, but when buying spikes as we’ve seen recently, there’s a point at which a system can’t efficiently handle the excess demand. That’s when we get significant port slowdowns.”

In addition to the small pool of available containers, Bowman said warehousing space for unloaded goods is almost maxed out. American warehousing only has roughly three percent of its total space available, which is not a good thing. He says the West Coast ports have less than two percent of space available.

“That only makes the container shortage worse because you have to be able to empty containers to make them available,” he said.

Many truckers who deliver to ports run into something called a “dual transaction” requirement. Bowman said that means if a trucker has a container to drop off, they’d better have another one to pick up. If a driver has a container to pick up, they’d better have another one to drop off. It’s efficient on paper, but if a driver doesn’t have that second part of the dual transaction, they’ll have to go find one.

“Another big challenge at the ports is something called the ‘Box Rule,’” he said. “When a trucker drops off a container to a particular shipping company, you have to have a chassis. Those are the wheels on the bottom that you load the container on.

“These steamship companies have contracts with different chassis makers,” Bowman said. “A steamship line will say, ‘if you’re going to tender one of our containers, you also have the chassis of the company we’ve contracted with.’ If you don’t have the right chassis to go with the right container, you’ll find yourself with cargo, the booking, and nowhere to unload it.”

Bowman, a business veteran with over 30 years of experience, says there is a lot of conversation about not having a Box Rule at the country’s ports. Shippers don’t want to worry about where the chassis comes from. Instead, they want the companies to bill whoever needs to get billed to use a chassis.

“Because of rules like this, roughly 30 percent of truck drivers miss their appointments,” Bowman said. “if you aren’t there on time for whatever reason, such as looking for a chassis, there’s no recourse. You’ve missed your appointment. It’s not unusual, at all, for a trucker to get there hours early and miss their appointment because they’re stuck in a queue.”

Another big reason that things get bogged down is a backlog. A lot of the shipments coming in right now got booked 90 days ago, if not longer.

While shippers, port officials, and government officials are looking at how to rectify these different challenges, Bowman says one of the biggest challenges is a lack of adequate infrastructure at the ports. Most of America’s ports were built when ships were typically much smaller than they are today.

“When I started in the shipping industry, a large ship was around a 4,000-container capacity,” he recalled. “In the 1980s, that was a big ship. Now, we have ships that can hold between 10,000 and 20,000 containers.

“Not only are they bigger, but these ships also just aren’t one carrier like they used to be,” Bowman added. “It used to be one carrier, one ship. You now have what are called ‘Shipping Alliances.’ In fact, there are three big ones in the U.S. As many as four or more steamship lines can be sharing space on one ship.”

Bowman said one of his biggest personal concerns is agricultural goods. If a shipment of consumer electronics takes a long time to get where it needs to go, the products aren’t in any danger of spoiling. Agricultural shipments contain perishable products that won’t wait long for a container and ship.

“A lot of attention needs to get paid to that,” he said. “Those are some of our best exports, and we need to protect that part of the supply chain.”

Bowman is an internationally-respected business consultant who says he’s never seen anything like this before. “There have been port slowdowns in the past, but this is truly unprecedented,” he said.

April 14, 2022April 14, 2022

Boom Island in Minneapolis – Take Two

Boom Island Park in Minneapolis is one of my favorite places to explore in the Twin Cities. In fact, it was the first place I went to when I got bit by the exploring bug. Well, now that Derrick moved to Minnesota, it’s time to start showing him some of my favorite places in the Twin Cities (and there are a LOT of them).

The park actually gets its name from the island that it once was. The island was named for the booms that were used to separate logs floated down the Mississippi River to sawmills powered by St. Anthony Falls (another of my favorite spots). Each log cut along the tributaries of the Mississippi River was “branded” by each lumber company that put its own stamp on the end of is logs.

One of the things I love about Boom Island Park is the big city is on one side, the green (it will be at some point!) and the wide open space of the park on the other side. (Photo by Chad Smith)

They were separated using the stamps and directed to the right mill by men working from Boom Island. The sawmills at the falls were eventually replaced by flour mills. What remains of those flour mills makes up Mill Ruins Park, yet another great place to explore in the Twin Cities of Minnesota.

What I love most about the park, besides just how big it is, is the fact that it’s set up next to the Mississippi River. You’ve got the big city on one side, and the open areas of the park on the other side.

The land ceased to be an island a while ago due to a buildup of silt and sawdust. It was bought by the park board with funds from the state legislature through the Metropolitan Council in 1982. The land was bought from a construction company for $2.6 million. That land had been targeted for acquisition in the 1978 plan for the development of the central riverfront as a park by the Riverfront Development Coordinating Board.

At one point, the RDCB even considered converting the land to an island once again, but they decided against it because of the cost. The first phase of the park was dedicated in 1987.

Isn’t this a remarkable old bridge at Boom Island Park? (Photo by Chad Smith)

One of my other favorite parts of the park is an old railroad bridge, originally built in 1901 to Nicollet Island, was converted into a bicycle and pedestrian bridge. The bridge was repaired and restored in 2018.

And here is the old railroad bridge. The MOTHER LODE for this old urban explorer.

What I was most surprised at that day is how many people took hiking trips up and down the tracks. (Photo by Chad Smith)

Here’s the link to my Facebook photo album.

April 10, 2022April 10, 2022

Anoka’s abandoned amphitheater

An abandoned amphitheater? Who could resist that?!

Anoka was my next stop on the exploration schedule to check out an old, abandoned amphitheater. With a hat tip to Brendon Maness for the tip, Derrick and I jumped in the car for a quick drive north on 169 and literally almost ran into the amphitheater as it’s a sidewalk away from 169 itself. Bet the traffic noise made for an interesting background to the entertainment folks put on there, back in the day?

My first impression of the amphitheater was an obvious one: this thing has been around a LONG time. The structure was put together back in 1914 on the banks of the Rum River in Anoka. The really interesting part to me is its name: the Windego Park Auditorium and Open-Air Theater. At first, I thought it was Wendigo. Do you know what a Wendigo is? I bet you do if you’re a monster movie buff like me.

The abandoned amphitheater in Anoka, Minnesota, was first built in 1914. (photo by Chad Smith)

The old theater is currently listed in the National Register of Historic Places and had to be a great place to watch a program back then. The location on the bank of the Rum River is beautiful.

Anoka’s citizens back then had a notable interest in outdoor entertainment and recreation. Thaddeus P. Giddings, a promoter of music education who’d been organizing community singalongs in the summer of 1913, took over organizing the programs and entertainment at the amphitheater.

Another gentleman named William Gray Purcell designed the amphitheater, and I thought he did a bang-up job. The stage sits on the flat part of the riverbank, and, as you can see in the pictures, the seats are on the sloping hillside. It had room for an audience of up to 1,600 people in its heyday.

At one time, the seating was covered by a colorful retractable awning system designed to protect patrons from the weather. That had to be a must-have during summertime storms and heat waves, am I right? A curved back wall at one time included a box office, entrance doors, and a projection booth, but that part no longer stands.

The orchestra pit was located at the foot of the bleachers. The stage area was off to the left and was nothing more than a flat part of the riverbank. (Photo by Chad Smith)

The theater was used for amateur plays, historical pageants, and other local community musical or meeting events. However, the theater would only thrive as long as Giddings was on hand. Giddings began spending summers at his music camp located in Michigan, and the amphitheater fell into disuse, with the exception of an occasional gathering.

In 1979, Anne Bronken, a University of Minnesota Landscape Architecture Department student, designed a plan to restore the amphitheater. Community organizers patched the concrete and did some cleanup work. A restoration planned as recently as 2010 didn’t happen. Today, the amphitheater has only its seating and orchestra pit left standing, and both are in a deteriorated state.

The view from the amphitheater. The Rum River is in the background and had to make for a fantastic setting to watch a play or concert. (Photo by Chad Smith)

Here’s a link to my Facebook photo album

April 4, 2022April 4, 2022

Soybean Harvest Disappoints South American Farmers

The South American soybean harvest is on the mind of many in the commodity markets this time of year. One expert says the Brazilian soybean harvest was about three-quarters complete, and, as of last week, the results may be a dramatic step down from last year. That could mean extra export opportunities for American soybeans in the months ahead.

Michael Cordonnier is an agronomist with Corn and Soybean Advisors, Incorporated, in Hinsdale, Illinois. The Brazil soybean harvest is 75-80 percent complete, and the Safriña, or second-corn crop, is all but completed at 99 percent after getting planted in the optimal window of time.

“I think the weather has been pretty good to allow the second-corn crop to get in the ground,” Cordonnier said while on the phone from his office in Illinois. “It’s off to a good start, but there’s still a long way to go. However, the market seems pretty confident that we’ll see a good-sized Safriña corn crop.”

In fact, he says there’s so much optimism around the potential of the corn crop that it’s pressuring Brazil’s domestic corn prices. There’s even more pressure on their domestic corn prices because the Brazilian real is strengthening when compared to the dollar. He said it’s trading at about 4.7 to the dollar, the strongest it’s been in a year.

“The South American market, at least in Brazil, is very confident that we could see a corn crop that’s 25 million tons larger than last year,” he said. “There is some concern about potential frost late in the season before the crop matures.

“La Niña is still out there,” Cordonnier added, “and it’s going to stay a couple of more months. That generally results in earlier-than-normal frost. Any frost, at all, before the end of June is important for the Safriña crop in Brazil.”

The pace is a lot slower in Argentina, where the South American crop expert says the corn is about ten percent harvested while the soybean crop is less than five percent in the bin. Early yields continue to be disappointing, early on, so he said it remains to be seen what will happen in Argentina.

South American growing areas struggled with a drought that, in some cases, stretched back to 2021 and earlier. He said some of those same areas are starting to see some rainfall. However, many areas are still looking for a consistent drink of water to recharge their soils.

The Brazilian soybean harvest may be disappointing, but the second corn crop is off to a good start, even though there’s a long way to maturity. (Photo from wikipedia)

“There’s still some dryness in east-central Brazil,” he said, “including the corn-producing states of Goias and Minas Gerais. It remains to be seen if the dryness gets resolved, but I’m not optimistic as South America is getting closer to what’s typically a dry season.

“The last summer rains usually occur in early May, so there’s a month or two left in the summer rainy season,” he added. “But it’s getting better.”

Cordonnier predicts a Brazil soybean harvest of 123 million tons, within a narrow range of an upside of 124 and a downside of 120. However, he says farmers are “pretty close” to being done with results in the low 120s. He predicts an Argentine soybean harvest of 39 million tons. “I’m a little bit on the low side,” he said. “But I expect the Buenos Aires Grain Exchange to lower their soybean number as well.

“I expect Brazil’s farmers to produce 112 million tons of corn,” Cordonnier said. “We’ll see what the weather does to and for the Safriña corn crop. In Argentina, I stayed at 49 million tons for their corn harvest, and the Grain Exchange agrees with me as they lowered their prediction to 49 million. I thought they should have been at that number a long time ago.”

His numbers continue to get narrower for both corn and soybeans in each country. The overall South American soybean crop is going to be down by a big number from last year.

“I have the South American soybean harvest at 171.6 million tons compared to 198 million last year,” Cordonnier said. “That’s down about 26 million tons from last year, which is a significant drop. The news is better for the South American corn crop, which I have at 167 million tons, compared to last year’s harvest of 143 million.

“That’s up a good amount from last year,” he added. “That jump happened because the Safriña corn crop was such a disaster in 2021. Corn will be better than last year, and soybeans will be worse than last year: It’s the reverse of what we had last year in South America.”

Does that mean some soybean export opportunities for the U.S. this year? It’s likely, but Cordonnier says the war in Ukraine and its impact on global commodity markets makes it hard to know for sure what’s ahead for the remainder of 2022.

February 23, 2022February 23, 2022

Spring: when does it get here?

Spring weather is always a fun conversation across farm country, whether in the local coffee shop, after church, or during a sidewalk stroll down any small-town street in America. I came across a recent article from the National Weather Service saying that March might have above-normal temperatures and was intrigued. So, I got on the phone for an assignment from the National Association of Farm Broadcasting and began digging.

My first phone call was to Dennis Todey, the director of the Midwest Climate Hub in Ames, Iowa. As far as the March forecast goes, the veteran meteorologist says it depends on one thing: location, location, and location.

“The farther north you go, the less chance you have of being above normal during March,” Todey said. “But we should begin to rebound fairly quickly after the recent cold stretch that brought snow into parts of the Upper Midwest.”

Spring weather — Dennis Todey is the director of the Midwest Climate Hub in Ames, Iowa. (photo from climatehubs.usda.gov)

What you may not know is most of the cold that covered parts of the Upper Midwest was originally supposed to stay well to the north, especially up in Canada. Some of that cold worked its way into the North Central U.S., but it’s been limited mainly to the areas with snow cover.

As you go further west in the Northern Plains, there is less snow cover, so the temps haven’t been quite as cold. “The probabilities are not big, but the possibility of some warmer temperatures is there,” Todey said.

Looking out beyond March to the spring weather forecast, again, it all depends on which location you’re referring to. Out in the Eastern Corn Belt from Central Illinois and further east, they’ve had several storm events move through the area. The outlook in that location continues to look wet there.

“Planting delays are definitely on the radar in that location,” Todey said.

It’s the opposite in the Central and Southern Plains, where drought conditions have steadily grown worse in recent months as it’s been a dry and warm winter. The big question is whether the area is going to get any moisture anytime soon.

“It’s going to be interesting in the eastern Dakotas and parts of Minnesota,” he said. “They got some moisture late last year and recently picked up some recent snow as well.

“Places like Missouri and Iowa are more of a mixed bag right now,” he said. “Iowa still has some carryover dry soils, and then we have some dry soils in parts of Wisconsin in areas that keep missing out on moisture events.”

Speaking of dry weather, a good-sized part of rural America is short of moisture. The shortage in the plains begins in Nebraska and stretches to the south. It’s dry to very dry, but the lack of moisture doesn’t stop there.

“Parts of Iowa and Wisconsin are quite dry,” Todey said. “It’s quite dry in northern Illinois, which is a carryover from last year. Depending on which part you’re talking about, parts of the Dakotas had moisture while others didn’t get enough moisture for runoff for ponds and dugouts from a livestock standpoint.”

The winter wheat crop is really struggling because of the dry weather. The spring weather forecast hopefully has some moisture in it to help the wheat crop to at least somewhat rebound from the poor conditions.

As winter begins to wind down and spring gets closer, Todey has noticed an interesting trend in recent years when it comes to winter weather. Up here in Minnesota, we were able to take the dog for a walk in short sleeves or light jackets into November of 2021, which is almost becoming more of the norm rather than the exception.

“Winter has been showing up later than normal in recent years,” he said after some thought on the matter. “Let me frame this climatologically for you.

“The 90 coldest days on average for most of the Upper Midwest are typically December, January, and February,” Todey said. “That’s based on looking at data over the last 30 years. We’ve seen some of the coldest events of the winter occurring in late February.”

While late-winter snow isn’t uncommon, the larger events have been coming later and later, so “something is going on that’s a little different.”

February 8, 2022February 8, 2022

Planting questions in 2022

Planting questions abound here in the late stages of winter. How many acres of corn, soybeans, wheat, and other crops will get planted in 2022? The acreage battle is a hot topic of conversation in the markets and in coffee shops across rural America. This year’s acreage battle is far from over and actually began last year.

That’s the opinion of Joe Vaclavik of Standard Grain in Nashville, Tennessee. The long-time market expert says this has gone on for months for a variety of reasons, led by fertilizer issues.

“Even going back to last fall, the market was very aware of upcoming fertilizer challenges,” he said on the phone from his Nashville office. “It was widely known that fertilizer prices were rising rapidly and would have an impact on this year’s acreage mix.”

He said for a moment in time, they saw the ratios and new-crop prices seem to favor corn. It appeared the market was trying to buy corn acreage back because of the potential of losing acres due to fertilizer prices. The fact of the matter is no one has a clue what the crop rotations are going to look like.

“There are several well-respected analysts like the University of Illinois that had an estimate of 96 million corn acres,” he said. “That would be an increase near 2.5 million over last year.

“And then, Farm Futures did a customer survey and came away with an estimate of 90 million acres,” he added. “The difference between 96 million and 90 million acres in terms of pricing implications, balance sheets, and fundamentals is phenomenal. Those are two totally-different markets and totally-different worlds.”

In any given year, Vaclavik says trying to predict or estimate what the acreage will be is a near-impossible task. Occasionally, someone will predict accurate numbers, but no one is consistently accurate. There are always “curveballs,” and this year will feature more curveballs than ever.

“This uncertainty doesn’t just apply to corn and soybean acres,” he said. “You have another bunch of crops that also make money for farmers. Spring wheat makes money; oats make money; small grains make money.”

The “other piece of the pie” among the planting questions is that principle crop acreage has trended lower for the last 7-8 years. Things are in a state of flux, and he feels the unknown might actually be more supportive than not for the markets. The fertilizer question and its impact depends on where you’re located.

“I’ve talked to people who have their fertilizer needs covered, and they feel good about the situation,” Vaclavik says. “The thing is that most farmers really don’t want to change their rotations. I did a survey of my customers a while back and most said they’re rarely in favor of switching rotations, if ever.

“If they can stick to their rotations, that’s what they’ll do,” he added. “But it still could be tricky.”

Even a farmer who’s already locked in their fertilizer for the 2022 season can still run into fertilizer problems. Actually, getting the physical delivery of that product could be a different story because of serious supply chain issues.

Corn is also a more input-intensive crop, so farmers can’t have their fertilizer not show up when it’s time get moving on spring planting. While not everyone is going to struggle to get fertilizer, there is still a risk going into springtime. Consequently, fertilizer will be a major deciding factor in answering those planting questions.

Small grains could be an interesting topic in the spring. Vaclavik says he would not be surprised to see more spring grains in the acreage mix. One thing that people might not be talking about a lot is some of the northern United States and even into Canada are still experiencing drought.

“Things are still dry in the Dakotas and over the border in Canada,” Vaclavik said. “They are still in a drought, and that will be an additional factor when it comes to acreage. It all depends on what farmers are comfortable planting into the dry conditions. I know it’s not as bad as last summer, but there is still a drought in that region.

“I haven’t seen a year like this in recent memory where it’s so hard to predict the answers to the planting questions that we’re asking,” he added.

October 11, 2021October 11, 2021

Harvest 2021 deep dive shows variability

Harvest 2021 is proceeding along at a good pace. Mike Zuzolo is the Founder and President of Global Commodity Analytics in Atchison, Kansas. He took a deep dive last week into the crop progress numbers and found a lot of variability in the results.

“Comparing the pace of the corn harvest 2021 versus the pace of the soybean harvest suggests that the corn yields are indeed a little more variable than beans,” Zuzolo said. “I hate to say lowered because of the issues that we’re seeing with the yields coming in. We’re seeing very good, very top-end yields coming in down in Kansas and Nebraska.

“My business clients and subscribers say strong yields are coming in through certain parts of Illinois,” he added. “However, my question is whether they’re top-end yields. Probably 90 percent of the producers I work with throughout Nebraska and Kansas would say ‘yes,’ we have top-end corn yields, and we’re close to wrapping up. However, central Illinois and central Indiana are probably around 50 percent complete, by comparison.”

Illinois and Indiana farmers are probably close to 75 percent done with soybean harvest 2021, but recent rainfall has slowed them down a bit. His clients in both states are saying they have top0-end yields in just 25 percent of their corn, but everything else is above average.

He thinks the numbers are showing the corn yields are more variable, especially because our corn and soybeans both have low moisture content. Six of the top 18 corn-producing states are at 50 percent or greater on corn harvest. About 29 percent of the national harvest 2021 is done compared to 24 percent at the same time last year.

“Those kinds of numbers are completely upside down when it comes to the soybean harvest,” Zuzolo said. “Just two of the 18 major soybean-producing states are at 50 percent or greater on harvest pace. The national soybean harvest is at 35 percent compared to 34 percent at the same time in 2020.”

Here’s the rest of the conversation.

September 24, 2021September 24, 2021

Banks worry about funding mechanism in Infrastructure Package

Banks across America would like to let you know about a small provision in the massive 3.5 trillion-dollar infrastructure package trying to make its way through Congress and get to the president’s desk. That’s a big piece of legislation to pay for, and one way that Democrats behind the bill want to fund it involves the IRS and your bank accounts. All of the bank accounts.

Paul Merski is the Executive Vice President of Congressional Relations and Strategy for the Independent Community Bankers of America. He said one way the administration wants to foot the bill for the infrastructure legislation is “horrible.”

“They would have the IRS look into everyone’s bank account transactions,” Merski said. “The legislation will force all banks to report on any transaction going into or out of an account worth 600 dollars or more. What it means is every account in America will then get monitored by the IRS as banks are forced to send in your information.”

To generate revenue like legislators envision to help pay the cost, Merski said the IRS will basically be assuming that most everyone in America is a “tax cheat.” It’s going to involve banks across the country sending in large amounts of information to the IRS, who will then have to sort through all of it to figure out what’s happening in each account.

The accounts in question include savings accounts, checking accounts, business accounts, personal and business loans, cash transactions, and even international transactions. To find any potential infractions, the IRS would be looking for a needle in a haystack.

“What we’re fearful of is this idea is going to cause a lot of false audits, a lot of false positives, and a lot of white noise,” he said. “The IRS will then be able to subpoena additional information on people’s accounts, to freeze people’s accounts, to garnish people’s accounts if there’s a dispute with the IRS.

“It’s crazy,” Merski added. “They pretend that they are going after millionaires and billionaires, and our question is, why then, do they need everyone’s account transactions sent to the IRS? The last thing we need is to be sending more information and more data to the IRS.”

This is especially concerning for rural bankers. He points out that community banks do 80 percent of all the agricultural lending in the nation, as well as over 50 percent of all the small business lending. They want customers to know that if this goes through, those banks are going to have to report all of your financial transactions, even loan information, to the IRS.

The Independent Community Banks of America are concerned about the privacy of bank accounts across the country.

“We’re worried that our customers don’t know what’s happening with this proposal,” Merski said. “We want you to know it’s not the bank’s idea to be sending all this information to the IRS. It’s the IRS, the Treasury Department, and the administration demanding that the banks report all these transactions.”

He says the typical small business owner, farmer, or rancher has to know about this idea and understand what’s happening in Washington, D.C. They also want farmers, ranchers, and small business owners to weigh in on the topic.

“If this is something that concerns you like it concerns our community bankers, you need to contact your congressmen and senators,” Merski said. “This is overkill: This is a dragnet, and this is the IRS looking to profile people based on their transactions.

“This is a stop-and-frisk against average Americans,” he added. “It’s going to add a lot of cost and compliance burdens against both bankers and the general public.”

September 22, 2021September 22, 2021

Dry Weather in Time for 2021 Harvest

Dry weather is a never-ending talker at the local coffee shops during the growing season, but even more during harvest. Farmers can get a lot of work done in a short time if the weather stays dry. John Baranick (rhymes with ”mechanic”) is a meteorologist with DTN, who says things might be a little drier as harvest continues to speed up across most of farm country.

Drying Off for Harvest

“A high-pressure ridge will continue to move into the Pacific Northwest and will block a lot of moisture from reaching the Upper Midwest for several days,” Baranick says. “Now through the last week of September should be pretty good for getting out there and harvesting the crops.”

The 2021 drought dried out a big chunk of rural America this year, but over the last several weeks, much of the American farm country saw consistent rainfall. Baranick, an Iowa State University graduate with degrees in meteorology and agronomy, says the consistent rain has recharged at least some of the deficit in soil moisture.

“It has,” he said. “We’ve seen some good rainfall in Minnesota, Iowa, the eastern Dakotas, Wisconsin, and Eastern Nebraska over the past several weeks. The level of drought keeps getting reduced in many of those areas. Some areas in the category of D3 drought were eliminated in northeastern South Dakota and northwest Iowa.

“Unfortunately, most of these areas have been so far behind on rainfall that getting almost a summer’s worth of rainfall in a month wasn’t enough to eliminate the drought,” Baranick added.

He estimates that dry weather has put most areas around 6 to 8 inches behind on their average rainfall totals. It’s even worse in western South Dakota. “I was talking to someone that farms out there, and he’s 10 inches behind on their average rainfall total,” he added. “We’re way behind, and it’s going to take a lot of rain to reverse that trend.”

Baranick, a meteorologist with DTN since 2011, says the fall season will have a lot of variability in the systems moving through rural America. Early September featured some good rainfall, but for the rest of September into October and November, he says they don’t see a strong signal either way of above-normal precipitation that will eat into some of that dryness.

“Some areas may improve a bit while others could degrade,” he said. “I don’t think there’s going to be a lot of movement either way through the fall season. We also don’t see a lot of moisture recharge during the winter season either,” Baranick said.

“Even with good precipitation over the winter, an extra inch or two isn’t going to bite into the five, six, or even eight inches of rainfall deficit we’re looking at,” he said. “We’re going to be dependent here in all these drier areas across the Western Corn Belt, especially the Northwest Corn Belt, for recharging our soil moisture and getting next season’s crop off to a good start.”

Plains Staying Dry Too

Dry weather is affecting he Great Plains from southern Nebraska down through Texas, which makes up the country’s largest winter wheat-producing area. A recent look at the Drought Monitor showed drier areas spreading out quite a bit across even more of Texas, Oklahoma, and southern Kansas.

“We’re looking for some rainfall in many of these areas because it’s also been hot,” Baranick said. “The temps have been above 90 and approaching 100 degrees on many days. The temps have been way above normal, and it’s sucking the moisture right out of the soil. Unfortunately, any systems potentially coming through this week don’t look like they have a lot of moisture.”

The Plains State have been and still are quite dry in 2021. (Photo from bismarktribune.com)

He says that high pressure setting up in the western U.S. will help keep systems at bay in much of the Plains as well. Unfortunately, the above-normal temps and dry weather in the forecast will continue to sap the remaining soil moisture.

Looking ahead to the fall and winter seasons in the south, we’re heading into a La Niña weather pattern, which typically means warm and dry weather in southern states. These areas seeing their soil moisture drying away don’t have a lot of immediate hope for building that back into the soil.

“For wheat production in the Plains, we’re going to be dependent on moisture coming into the region,” he said. “Hopefully, fall rains will be timely enough to get some good root development in wheat through the fall before they go dormant in the winter.

“We’re hoping that the rains turn on right away when we get out of the La Niña in the spring,” Baranick added. “If we don’t, the winter wheat crop in the Plains is going to be hurting.”

South Finally Drying Up After Storms

Hurricane Ida and Tropical Storm Nicholas brought a lot of extra water to the Southern States and the Delta Region. Moisture coming into the region off the Gulf of Mexico was difficult to turn off.

Hurricane Ida, followed by Tropical Storm Nicholas, brought far too much moisture and damage in the south. Drier weather is on the way, so hopefully cotton and soybeans can dry out in time for harvest. (Photo from wkrg.com)

“We will see some dry weather conditions finally get into the South,” he said. “That’s good because it’s going to take a bit for soybeans and cotton to dry off.”

September 12, 2021September 12, 2021

Fergus Falls and a broken dam exploration

Fergus Falls was calling me over the weekend, and that call finally proved irresistible. I’d heard through the grapevine about the ruins of an old dam along the Otter Tail River that collapsed back in the day. Well, I quit listening after the word “ruins” because I already knew I wanted to see “Broken Down Dam Park.”

Here’s a short video tour of the broken dam

Folks in that area built what’s called a hydroelectric gravity dam on the river in 1907. The dam was built out of concrete and powered a plant called the Fergus Falls City Light Station. The station provided power to city residents for just a year before disaster struck.

Approaching the Broken Down Dam (Photo by Chad Smith)

The large concrete dam suddenly collapsed in 1909, and you did not want to be downriver from the massive wall of water that suddenly rushed down the Otter Tail River. Can you image the roar of all that water moving at once?

One part of the Broken Down Dam near Fergus Falls that gives the dam it’s name. (Photo by Chad Smith

The dam broke at 4:20 in the morning on September 24, 1909, and the power of all that water releasing at once broke not one, not two, not three, but FOUR other dams downriver. Atlas Obscura says there were reports that the water was so powerful, it picked up a ten-ton generator and threw it into the river. Thankfully, no one died as a result of what was a catastrophe of immense size.

A wiki article (which I was able to validate in several other web pages) says that engineers made a crucial mistake when they constructed the dam. They didn’t conduct a proper site evaluation and wound up building on top of a spring. While I don’t pretend to understand how a spring can flow separately from a river while occupying the same space, it only took a year for the water pressure to build up along the foundations. The rupture washed out the concrete foundation and undermined the structural integrity of the dam, which then collapsed.

The Broken Down Dam, first built near Fergus Falls in 1907, collapsed to to an engineering error. (Photo by Chad Smith)

The dam broke in the center, and the rushing water first took out the Kirk Dam, which powered the city’s waterworks. The water then took out the Mount Faith Avenue Bridge before sweeping away the Red River Mill Dam and Woolen Mill Dam. Damage to the two mills totaled $15,000, with the damage in today’s economy equivalent to $432,000 in 2020.

Conspiracy theory alert: The Dayton Hollow Dam, five miles southwest of where the dam broke, was saved from destruction. The dam’s owner, Vernon Wright, had enough warning to hustle down there in time to get the floodgates open. The conspiracy? He also was president of the Otter Tail Power Company.

The biggest break in the Broken Down Dam. (Photo by Chad Smith)

The city of Fergus Falls then hired Otter Tail Power to build transmission lines into town. That helped spawn a local rumor, fueled by the newspaper, that Wright deliberately destroyed the city’s dam by secretly distributing quicksilver from a rowboat to undermine it.

Broken Down Dam Park was established in 1949, an 11-acre parcel of land. When the water level on the Otter Tail River is high, the flow can go fast enough between the blocks of the structure to create Class 3 rapids.

Here is the link to my complete photo album from Broken Dam.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=chad.smith.75685&set=a.4467526469974421