By MICHELE F. MIHALJEVICH

Indiana Correspondent

BLADEN, Neb. — Two Nebraska-based seed companies and a conservation organization have partnered to raise money for cover crop seed to help farmers impacted by March flooding in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska.

Green Cover Seed, based in Bladen, will match donations up to $10,000, while Arrow Seed, headquartered in Broken Bow, will match up to $5,000. Donations are being taken through No-till On the Plains, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational organization.

“This came about after all the flooding from the bomb cyclone,” explained Keith Berns, co-owner and sales lead with Green Cover Seed. “The pictures were just heartbreaking. We saw people donating hay and fencing supplies and wondered what we could do to help.”

As of early May, $5,000-$7,000 had been donated, he said. No-till On the Plains began taking donations at www.notill.org/flood-victim-seed-donations-0 the first part of April.

Berns isn’t sure how many farmers might need help. He said there will be a limit on how much free seed will go to each eligible applicant. Discounts may be offered to those needing additional seed. A decision hadn’t been made on how to confirm eligibility for farmers applying for the seed.

The March storm dumped several inches of rain and was responsible for flooding and damage to infrastructure such as roads, bridges, and dams. Some farm fields could be underwater for months, officials have said.

“It was the perfect storm of all kinds of bad things happening at once,” Berns noted. “We’d had a cold winter and a cold spring. The ground was still frozen. The rain, especially in the northern part of Nebraska, went straight to the rivers. A lot of those rivers had ice 2 feet thick. Those chunks of ice jammed on bridges and forced the water onto land.”

The goal is to get something planted in formerly flooded fields so they won’t remain empty until next planting season, he explained. “Some will still be able to get in and plant corn or soybeans. Others may take the prevented plant option and then plant cover crops. We’d just like to get some biology planted.”

The companies will offer several varieties of seed options such as sorghum, millet, oats, rye, radishes, and sunflowers.

Steve Swaffar, executive director of No-till On the Plains, said he and the seed companies are concerned there might be gaps in government programs for some producers suffering flood damage.

“The focus is on getting soil biological activity restarted so a year from now, some fields won’t still be in recovery,” he said. “Some of these fields won’t get planted this year. If the fields just remain bare, microbial and fungal systems won’t get restored. This will get them kick-started. If there’s another rain event, the fields will be better able to accept it.”

In addition to concerns about additional rain, the area still has to worry about snow melt from the Dakotas, Berns said.

Chunks of ice also damaged fields, Swaffar said. “There’s likely to be saturation through this summer for some of the fields. Even with the best conservation practices along the river, water is going to go where water is going to go.”

Farmers in flooded areas will have decisions to make once the water is gone and they can see the conditions of their fields, said Michael Henderson, resource conservationist for the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service Iowa office.

How a producer treats a field or attempts to reestablish a crop depends on “the length of time the field was underwater and the amount of sand or sediment that might have been deposited,” he pointed out.

“If there are just a couple inches of sand or sediment, you can till it under to get the topsoil back up. If you have two feet of sand, you can come in and move it aside and then haul it away. You can’t push it back into the stream. Don’t push the sand into an eroded area.”

Topsoil from a neighboring area, such as bottom ground, could be moved to replace what was washed away, Henderson said.

“Most of the fields will be put back into production. Farmers do have to remove the debris, such as cornstalks. It takes a lot of effort and depends on what came down the river.”