More than 100 attend a meeting of experts for help dealing with crop damage caused by a severe weather event in Dawson County, Nebraska.
Early morning, June 29, a severe thunderstorm hit the area around Dawson County, Nebraska, bringing destructive hail and causing severe damage to local crops.
An estimated 30,000-40,000 acres received hail damage across the county, with some farmers reporting acres that were 100 percent destroyed by the storm.
"I don’t want to take anything away from what’s happened in the towns and what we’ve seen of damages, but there’s a huge amount of damage on the agricultural side and could substantially be some big losses for the Dawson County area. Things started rolling through my head of how to bring impactful information at a very quick time that’s beneficial to our growers and agriculture," says Dustin O'Hanlon , Channel SeedPro / O'Hanlon Ag
O’Hanlon immediately jumped into action, organizing an informational meeting – just three days later, on July 2 – to assist the farmers he works with and others needing help.
The meeting, which included agronomists from the Gothenburg Learning Center, Channel Technical Agronomists, University experts, a veterinarian, a cover crop company, and crop insurance experts, was attended by more than 100 people.
O’Hanlon leveraged radio and social media to quickly spread the word about the free meeting. The gathering offered an opportunity for impacted farmers to hear from experts with answers to their questions and the best options for recovery.
“This meeting gave growers some ideas of what they could do moving forward, whether that’s a cover crop to save the nitrogen, maybe some feed, or how to control the weeds going forward if your crop is completely totaled out,” O’Hanlon explained.
Mark Reiman, Gothenburg Learning Center Manager, noted: “Dustin really wanted to help the farmers make the best decisions possible in a bad situation. It was a great example of the customer focus that some of our best SeedPros have.”
