WILDER, Idaho — Heavy rain and gusty winds caused some major damage over the weekend and early this week in portions of Idaho, which hit some local farmers hard.
The Idaho Hop Growers Commission said there were a few hop farms that were hit bad by the storms earlier this week, specifically one farm in Wilder where a huge section of a hop field completely came down.
According to Idaho Preferred, a program through the Idaho State Department of Agriculture, Idaho ranks second for hops production in the United States.
Most Idaho hops are grown in the southwestern part of the state around Wilder.
Due to some of the storms that hit the Gem state earlier this week, many farmers that grow these 18-foot-tall plants saw their hops fields collapse, including Weilmunster Farms.
"The outer edge held which is weird, but the inner just couldn't handle all that immense weight," Kevin Weilmunster, Farm Manager at Weilmunster Farms said. "Once the rain starts happening, and then the wind, they start to dance, and they start twisting. Once it starts getting in rhythm, this whole field will start to move and that's what you don't want."
Weilmunster said once the both the rain and the winds start to pick up, the wires, cables and wooden poles snapped collapsing 34 acres of this 100-acre field.
Once the hops touched the wet soil, Weilmunster said, "the clock started ticking." Which means harvesting these plants will start a lot sooner than expected.
"We were going to start harvesting maybe next Wednesday or Thursday, and now we need to hurry up and start asap,” Weilmunster said.
Even days after the heavy rain and gusty winds hit this area, Weilmunster Farms still has no idea how much of an impact this will have.
"I would like to salvage it all, but we could lose 10% or 20% off of this,” Weilmunster said. “So, it just kind of depends."
The cleanup of the aftermath will add extra work for the crew.
"Normally, we would have been done with this field in two days,” Weilmunster said. “It may take five or six days, you know, maybe seven."
The manager of the farm says you just must roll with the punches.
"Well, when it happens, it happens,” Weilmunster said. “You have to deal with it, and you just have to make do with what God gives you and just go, you know."
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