This year’s historic Midwest drought is having an impact on all crops — including popcorn. Gary Smith is President of the American Popcorn Company, the parent company of Jolly Time Popcorn. The company is based in Sioux City and has contracts with farmers in northwest Iowa and northeast Nebraska to grow the company’s popcorn. Smith describes this year’s crop as “okay,” especially when compared with conditions in other parts of the country.

“There is going to be a popcorn shortage because Indiana burnt up in June even, I mean, they didn’t even get started. And we’ve got a lot of competitors in the eastern cornbelt,” Smith says. Smith says about 90-percent of the company’s popcorn is grown under irrigation in northeast Nebraska. He says the dryland popcorn grown in the Sac City, Iowa area is in decent shape having received some rain in July that didn’t fall elsewhere. Still, he says there may be some quality issues in this year’s popcorn.

“I think the test weights will be down. When the test weights are down, then maybe your pops aren’t quite as good, we might struggle with quality issues, but that’s the way Mother Nature treats the product. And I’m just grateful we’re going to have a crop,” Smith says. With field corn prices at, or near, all-time record highs,- popcorn companies have to pay more to prevent farmers from switching away from popcorn production. Smith says the company is already paying record-high contracts to farmers, and he expects the contracts to be higher again next year. He worries, though, about an eventual consumer backlash.

“We’re at the highest point we’ve ever been because of the price of corn. Now with the drought, corn prices have rallied more, and so we’re looking at another increase, which is a big worry,” according to Smith. “Because at some point, America’s consumer is gonna say ‘your products too expensive, I don’t want you any more,’ and I don’t think we’ve gotten there yet. But where is that threshold? I’m not absolutely sure.” The American Popcorn Company has been in business for 98 years. Smith is a fourth-generation family member involved with the company.

(Radio Iowa)

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources has released its latest Water Summary Update. Officials say prior to the rains of August 8th, precipitation averaged 50 percent less than normal for the last two weeks. Shallow groundwater levels in parts of Iowa are at or near historic lows. Recent rainfall has helped to lower water demand, but has not impacted shallow groundwater levels. There have been reports in eastern Iowa, of private wells being drilled deeper or having pumps lowered to meet water demand.

The number of streams with “protected flow” (cannot be used for irrigation) have been reduced from 22 to 19. Streams in most of southwest Iowa are below normal flow, and the report shows shallow groundwater in all of southwest Iowa is not enough to meet the demand for irrigation. More than two-thirds of the State are now under Extreme Drought conditions, including every county stretching from northern Boone County southwest, through northwestern Fremont County. Cass County and the northwestern tip of Adair County are included in the Extreme Drought conditions, while the remaining southwest and south central counties are under Severe Drought conditions.

The past two weeks continued to be mostly hotter and drier than normal weather across Iowa. Temperatures averaged 4 degrees above normal while precipitation averaged 0.60 inches less than normal for the period. Rain totals varied from no rain at Underwood in western Iowa to nearly four inches at Nevada through August 6th. Storms on August 8th (after the cut-off time for the drought
monitor and for the precipitation map) resulted in a statewide average of 0.34  inches of rain, with almost everyone in the state seeing some rain. Among the areas with the most rain, was Audubon, Harrison, Page, and Shelby counties.

For a more thorough review of Iowa’s water resource trends July 23 through August 8, go to http://www.iowadnr.gov/watersummaryupdate. The report is prepared by the technical staff from the Iowa DNR, the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, and the USGS, in collaboration with the Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management Division.

Officials with the Cass County Conservation Service said Thursday, due to unforeseen circumstances the “Breakfast with the Birds” Program scheduled to be held Saturday morning at Sunnyside Park in Atlantic, has been cancelled. The program was to have begun at 9-a.m.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – The latest U.S. Drought Monitor map shows conditions have worsened in the Corn Belt states of Iowa and Nebraska.  The map shows extreme drought has spread further into the western half of Iowa and covers all but a small section of southeast Nebraska, where severe drought is occurring. A few counties in central Nebraska are still listed as being under exceptional drought conditions.  The drought map is a project shared by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Weather Service. The latest map is based on conditions as of 6 a.m. Tuesday, so it doesn’t reflect rainfall from storms that passed through parts of both states later Tuesday and on Wednesday.

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The Iowa State Fair begins Thursday, but hundreds of people are already camping on the fairgrounds. Kevin Muxfeldt of Story City started setting up his family’s campsite last Saturday. “There’s so much to do here that I don’t want to have a heart attack,” he says, “so I take my time, get everything all set up and leveled up.”

The Muxfeldts have two adjacent camping spots. He and his wife stay in one camper and his mother — 80-year-old Aretta, of Webster City — stays in the other. Green indoor/outdoor carpeting covers the space between the campers and Muxfeldt tacked it down with laths so the wind doesn’t whip the carpeting away.  “This is like Grand Central Station,” he says of the spot. “We have three-quarter-inch plywood picnic tables on both sides, lawn chairs all over the place. I’ve got the ice cream maker here.”

Muxfeldt was sitting in one of those lawn chairs, relaxing underneath an awning on Monday afternoon, as an electric fan sitting on one of those picnic tables stirred up the air. Muxfeldt has two words for those who’d like to start camping at the fair.  “Good luck,” he said. “If you get these spots and you give ’em up, it’s like Green Bay Packers tickets. You’ll never get it back because there’s a waiting list a mile long wanting to get reserved spots here because we have electricity, we have water and about 13 years ago I came in and we have sewer hook-up, so we have all the comforts of home.”

The Muxfeldt family has the two spots closest to the east gate that leads from the campgrounds into the fairgrounds. Muxfeldt’s mother secured their prime location 35 years ago, when one of the two spots was mainly occupied by a huge oak tree. That tree was knocked down by a tornado several years ago, making more room for two campers.

(Radio Iowa)

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – The Army Corps of Engineers is again reducing its prediction for how much water will flow down the Missouri River this year because of the drought.  The corps now predicts 21 million acre-feet of runoff this year in the 2,341-mile-long river that flows from Montana through North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa and Missouri. That forecast is about 85 percent of normal, and well below last year’s record amount of 61.2 million acre-feet of runoff. Flooding along the river last year caused massive damage, but this year the amount of snowmelt and rain flowing into the river is below normal.  Some of the extra water stored in reservoirs along the river has been used to provide enough water for navigation, power and other uses of the river.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Iowa State Fair officials are on alert but not overly worried about swine flu cases showing up at the fair as it begins Thursday. Animals have been passing a new swine flu strain on to humans. Officials say more than two dozen human cases of the new strain have been confirmed in the U.S. in the past year. Ten cases confirmed last week were linked to the Butler County Fair in southwest Ohio.

Iowa State Fair manager Gary Slater, says that the state veterinarian has been checking fairground preparations before up to 3,500 pigs start arriving today (Tuesday). Each animal must have papers from its local veterinarian, attesting to the animal’s health. Slater says any pig that appears to be sick will be sent home if necessary.