From drought to ping-pong size hail and unseasonable warmth, weather extremes have wheat farmers reaching for their phones to ring their insurance adjusters to assess the viability of their crops.
Oklahoma farmer Dennis Schoenhals made the call a few weeks ago, after a storm hammered his wheat with icy chunks, bending the stalks in half, while only dropping an inch of rain.
“We thought we were really going to have a good crop — the best crop we’d ever had — and then we got hit by hail,” he said. “According to the adjuster, we’ve had about 70% damage. We ...