Braggs-Area Farmer Facing Loss Of Crops, Equipment In Floods

As the flood waters continue to drop, farmers across Green Country are assessing the damage to their land and equipment. For many, the damages are devastating.

Friday, May 31st 2019, 11:47 pm

By: Justin Shrair


As the flood waters continue to drop, farmers across Green Country are assessing the damage to their land and equipment. For many, the damages are devastating.

Phillip Goodnight's family has been farming in the Braggs area since the 1940s. He said his family has never seen this type of flooding and said he think's he's lost nearly everything.

For Phillip Goodnight, farming corn and wheat is not only a way of life, but it's his entire income. Now Goodnight’s fields are almost all flooded.

More than 700 acres of corn and more than 200 acres of wheat are nearly all gone.

"It's really devastating,you know, for a corn crop," Goodnight said.

"We start booking seed and fertilizer and chemicals last year in November, so we've worked from November up to this point and we are going to lose all of it."

He estimates the loss to be about a half a million dollars. He said a tiny bit of his wheat crop may be salvageable, but it’s too early to tell.

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Making matters worse he said he “lost most of our irrigation equipment. Our pumps, converters and our center pivots are gonna have damage, the ones that went under water and none of that's insurable," said Goodnight.

OSU Extension Educator Bruce Peverley said Phillip isn't the only corn and wheat farmer facing huge losses.

"When we should be thinking about getting combines out there to harvest that crop and to make his income for the year, it's flooded and under water and it's a total loss," said Bruce Peverley, Extension Educator, Agriculture for Nowata and Tulsa Counties.

Peverley said the silver lining may also come from all the water, which could help produce a lot of forage when things dry out. But in the meantime, many farmers are trying to figure out what’s next.

"We just don't know what to expect. We just have so many questions we don't know how to answer yet," said Goodnight.

If you are looking to help those affected, we have ways to help on our website.

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