OT used to be farm ground !

Here is three pictures I took yesterday out by The Boyer Chute just east of Ft. Calhoun Ne.
It used to be farm grounds corn,soybean and alfalfa.Now it looks like the desert from all the sand and silt from last years flooding.I dont think there will be any crops this year.

Flooding is what makes the ground good for plantng. It brings nutrients to the soil that have been depleted over the years. The rice fields west of Sacramento, CA are flooded on a regular basis by the rivers in the area and are some of the best farm land around.
Walt

Walt,I did not know that.To me it just looked like total devastation for the farmer that owns the ground the silt and sand must be any wheres from a 1/4" deep to 6 foot deep in places.

Walt that is true if the flooding is a back water flood. Meaning that the water is not moving very swift and deposits the silted soil from other land. The problem with what is picture is that it is current flooding. You don't get much of the silt as it is lighter. You get the heavier stuff. Which in most cases is sand. In some places the sand is 10-15 foot deep on top of the top soil. The ground will be costly to get back into production.

My brother has a bottom along a larger creek that is current flooded every few years. He has windrows of sand pushed along the edges of it. Even with his own dozer it costs him thousands of dollars per acre to remove the sand. It really wears the tracks on the dozer too.

I was talking to a fellow the other day that has some ground in western Iowa that was flooded last year. He thinks it will be 10 years or more before his ground is as productive as it was. He has sand in places to move and in the other places he says the compaction is just terrible. Think about how heavy water is per foot of depth. The soil is dead after being under water for months on end. He says even weeds are not growing very well.

He was also talking about how the Govt. is not really helping much with the flood they helped cause. The assistance is not even a drop in the bucket compared to the actual damage.

In the last couple of weeks, I've worked along I-29 from Missouri Valley, IA to St. Joseph, MO. I worked around Ft. Calhoun last winter.

I've seen an awful lot of land that looks just like your pictures. If the ground was at all fertile, there would at least be weeds growing by now. There aren't.

We drove thru there last Sunday. Noticed one house is completely gone now-it had a water line up about 4 feet, and I imagine it was not worth repairing! Wonder if they will let them rebuild in that flood plane!

I inspected one house in NW Missouri a couple of weeks ago (I'm under a confidentiality agreement that prevents me from publicly identifying the exact house) where my car would have been under water had it been parked last summer where it was parked while I was inspecting the house.

The house was on a built up foundation with the basement floor at the original grade level. The inspection was exterior only, and no one was around, but from the water mark on the foundation, the water lacked about two feet of reaching the main floor. The house appeared to have been in disrepair even before the flood, although efforts were being made to rebuild it. All that particular inspection required me to do was submit a report and photos of what I saw at that particular point in time, not offer opinions or recommendations, as opposed to some other inspections where I am required to make recommendations.

There was a six row corn planter and an old straight disc in the front yard. Both appeared to have been dragged there by the flood. This wasn't backwater, it had some force behind it.

Walt come look at my ground and tell me where the fertility is you dont know what you are talking about here antway

I do crop insurance claims work up there. I am pretty familiar with all that area.

They will get some huge plows and scrappers and eventually get it back to farm ground.

Gene

As the others say, a little back-water flooding - the water just builds up, doesn't flow across - can be messy but over the next 5 years add a little to the ground.

River flooding, where the current is strong and washes up ridges of sand, and erodes channels through the land - are real bad for the land, messes it up terrible.

--->Paul

That may now be full of nutrients, don't be surprisd if it produces a bumper crop.