(Radio Iowa) – Trees weren’t the only thing knocked down by the derecho that blew through Iowa last week. Gary Knight sells sweet corn at stands in Cedar Rapids and Marion, and tells K-C-R-G T-V he knew some of his corn would have damage. “You know I’m almost afraid to go look at the corn the next morning to see what happened,” Knight says. Over 60 mile and hour winds ripped through the farm, knocking down ten percent of Knight’s sweet corn. “The most vulnerable corn is the corn that’s just ready or ripe, and it has the heavy weight on it. So when it blows down, it’s not going to come back up again,” he says. Some of the corn from those fallen stalks is salvageable, but Knight says he can’t harvest the corn with a machine because of the damage and will have to use the old-fashioned method of picking.

“Go out there by hand, walk through it, bend over, pick them and get them in the wagon. So it’s just a whole lot more work, and hard to find people who’ll go out and do that,” Knight says. The farm lost a total of five acres from the storm that’s now been classified as a derecho. “I’m going to call it ‘monsoon weekend,” Knight says.

That loss of product means some stands are closed for now. As they work to pick up the damage and the crops he said they do still plan to have sweet corn available through September.