Florida sugar and citrus processors rushed to secure rail cars and equipment that could be crushed, blocked or turned into flying projectiles. Cattlemen opened up their fences and moved animals to higher ground and wooded areas, which can offer some relief from high winds.

To the north, cotton farmers in North and South Carolina fretted their fields might be facing a fate similar to their Texas counterparts. Late last month, Hurricane Harvey, which became a tropical storm after making landfall in Texas, destroyed an estimated $150 million worth of cotton, ripping the bolls off plants and leaving white fiber strewn across fields (all figures US$).

At U.S. Sugar, a Clewiston, Florida-based sugar producer that farms, mills and refines sugar, staff are drawing down water levels in farm canals, securing processing facilities and making plans for post-storm cleanup, company spokeswoman Judy Sanchez said.

“There’s not a thing we can do about the cane fields and orange groves, but pray,” said Adam H. Putnam, commissioner of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

One particularly keen concern for the sugar industry: How badly can the hurricane damage the sugar cane fields, as harvest is set to begin on Oct. 1?

Worries about Hurricane Irma hitting growing regions in the Caribbean and Florida helped boost raw sugar futures on the Intercontinental Exchange on Wednesday. Orange concentrate futures for November delivery also jumped Wednesday to $1.499 per pound, the highest since early May.

Florida sugar cane accounts for nearly a quarter of sugar produced in the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The hurricane also could potentially impact sugar prices through oil and ethanol prices, said James Liddiard, analyst at Agrilion Commodity Advisors in New York. Sugar prices often track energy prices as petroleum is a key input cost and millers can divert cane to sugar or ethanol.

State officials in Florida called for evacuations ahead of the storm’s expected landfall there this weekend, as the potentially catastrophic hurricane slammed through Caribbean islands with pounding winds, rain and surging surf.

Hurricane Irma is expected to impact the U.S. along the eastern coast of Florida, according to the National Weather Service, before moving on to Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina — states known for cotton, grain and livestock production.

The biggest risk the North Carolina cotton crops faces is wind, which would blow cotton plants over, said Guy Collins, a cotton extension associate professor and specialist at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Heavy rain too could push the cotton bolls to the wet ground and cause rot.

North and South Carolina represent about five per cent of cotton acres planted this year, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data.

Storm prep led livestock operators in North Carolina, the country’s second-largest producer of hogs and turkeys, to stock their grain bins with extra feed, in case the roads washed out.

Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest hog producer and processor owned by Hong Kong-based WH Group, was closely monitoring pits holding liquid hog waste, said company spokeswoman Kathleen Kirkham.

At Prestage Farms, staff are testing backup generators and making sure there is ample fuel to keep them running. They are also preparing to shutter the company’s turkey processing plant in St. Paul, N.C. if the storm turns dangerous to that area.

“Planning can go a long way,” said Ron Prestage of the Clinton, N.C.-based hog and turkey producer. “We plan for the worst and hope for the best.”

— Reporting for Reuters by P.J. Huffstutter in Chicago and Renita D. Young in New York; additional reporting by Theopolis Waters in Chicago.

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Infestations of the weed, Palmer amaranth, have affected other states in the U.S. Midwest through seed planted on land in the federal Conservation Reserve Program, weed scientists have said. The program pays farmers to remove land from crop production to improve water quality, prevent soil erosion and protect endangered species.

Palmer amaranth, which is native to the Southwest, has spread across conservation land in Iowa, which accounts for nearly a fifth of U.S. corn production and in 2016 exported more than US$1 billion of corn and soy.

Infestations of Palmer amaranth, which can grow as much as two inches a day, spread over 30 plantings in the federal program in Minnesota, according to the state agriculture department.

Until now, Minnesota officials were unsure of how the aggressive weed entered the state.

“We’re pretty certain it came from the seed source just because there was no other pathway for the seed to have gotten there,” said Geir Friisoe, director of the state agriculture department’s plant protection division.

All infested Minnesota conservation plantings used seed from Cottonwood, Minn.-based Green Valley Seed, the department said in a statement. The investigation did not find Palmer amaranth in leftover seed that was not used.

Green Valley could not immediately be reached for comment.

The company was fined US$4,000 for violating the state seed law. One violation involved mislabeling seed from Texas, where Palmer amaranth is widespread, as being from Minnesota, according to the department.

The vicious weed was spread uniformly across the infested Minnesota fields, Friisoe said in an interview. Weed scientists have noted that is a clear sign that the source of Palmer amaranth was the seed.

Palmer amaranth is hard to kill and, if left unchecked, destroys as much as 91 per cent of corn on infested land, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The weed has not yet spread into cropland in Minnesota, Friisoe said.

Under the state’s seed law, it is illegal to sell or transport seed mixes containing the Palmer amaranth seed.

Landowners face increased costs to control the weed.

Minnesota’s agriculture department will offer eradication services to help landowners eliminate the weed, Friisoe said, including testing suspect seed mixes.

— Reporting for Reuters by Renita D. Young and Tom Polansek in Chicago.

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The weed is hard to kill and, if left unchecked, destroys as much as 91 per cent of corn on infested land, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). It is spreading across Iowa, which accounts for nearly a fifth of U.S. corn production and in 2016 exported more than $1 billion of corn and soy.

The federal Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) pays farmers to remove land from production to improve water quality, prevent soil erosion and protect endangered species.

The weed, Palmer amaranth, has spread through seed sold to farmers in the conservation program, according to Iowa’s top weeds scientist, Bob Hartzler, and the conservation group Pheasants Forever.

“We are very confident that some of these seed mixes were contaminated,” Hartzler said.

Hartzler, an Iowa State University agronomy professor, said one seller was Allendan Seed Company, the state’s largest producer of local grass and wildflower seeds for conservation land.

In written responses to questions from Reuters, Allendan said it was “possible that pigweed seed… was present in some mixes.”

Palmer amaranth is a type of pigweed. Allendan did not confirm it had found the seed in any of its supplies. It said outside labs that the firm hires to test seed quality had been unable to distinguish Palmer amaranath from other pigweeds.

The company said it started using a new DNA test in February to check its seed for Palmer amaranth.

Many farmers joined the conservation program in the past year as prices for their crops tanked amid a global grains glut. The weed can be killed, but the cost of clearing it would be another hit to the cash-strapped farming community in the U.S., the world’s top corn supplier.

The program is managed by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and the Farm Service Agency (FSA), units of USDA. NRCS officials have acknowledged that contaminated seed mixes for conservation land have spread Palmer amaranth.

In Minnesota, authorities are also investigating whether the conservation program inadvertently introduced the weed to that state. North Dakota in November advised growers to scout their CRP acres for the weed.

Keith Smith, a corn and soybean farmer at Gladbrook, Iowa, about 110 km northeast of Des Moines, said he yanked Palmer amaranth out of land he set aside in the CRP after finding the weeds last year.

He doused them in diesel and torched them with old tires.

Smith now regrets joining the program.

“I thought I’d help out the Earth,” he said.

One plant, half a million seeds

The NRCS and FSA denied responsibility for the infestation because they do not supply or test the seed that farmers use to turn cropland into a refuge for wildlife. Landowners are responsible for finding their own seed.

None of the companies or organizations involved in the program should be blamed, said Jimmy Bramblett, the NRCS’s deputy chief of science and technology.

“It’s just something that happened,” he said.

The NRCS is nonetheless considering giving financial assistance to Iowa farmers to help control the weed and is working with the farming community and other government agencies to control it, Bramblett said.

Palmer amaranth, which is native to the southwestern U.S., grows up to two inches a day and can reach a height of 10 feet. It produces up to 500,000 seeds the size of a pepper grain, which travel easily on the wind, in manure or stuck to farm equipment and vehicles.

Midwest farmers now face increased costs for the herbicide and labour to eradicate the weed.

Fighting Palmer amaranth has doubled or tripled annual herbicide and labour costs to US$60-$80 (C$80-$107) per acre for cotton farmers in Georgia, said Stanley Culpepper, a weed science professor for the University of Georgia.

Iowa farmers currently spend US$35-$40 per acre on herbicides, Iowa State University research shows. If Palmer amaranth is firmly established, costs could increase by up to 50 per cent, Hartzler said.

Corn and soybeans can compete better with weeds than cotton plants, so the expense of controlling it could be less than on cotton farms.

Detective work

Palmer amaranth first arrived in Iowa in 2013 but exploded across the state last year, spreading from five to 48 of the state’s 99 counties, according to Iowa State University.

In at least 35 of those counties, the weed was found on land in the conservation program.

The rapid rise in the incidence of the weed came after landowners in Iowa signed more contracts to put fields into the program than any other state — 108,799 out of the 637,164 total U.S. conservation program contracts, according to USDA.

An Iowa landowner contacted Iowa State’s Hartzler after Palmer amaranth infested 70 acres of farmland he planted with the conservation seed mix.

“The Palmer amaranth was uniformly distributed across those 70 acres, so that was a good sign that it came in the seed,” Hartzler said.

Hartzler said he and his intern found the tiny black Palmer amaranth seeds in samples they took from seed bags the landowner purchased from Allendan.

He then grew some of the seeds in a greenhouse, he said, and they produced Palmer amaranth.

–– Reporting for Reuters by Renita D. Young and Tom Polansek.

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The exact number of swine killed in the Oklahoma fire, which began on Monday, was not immediately known. Smithfield did not say how many died in the blaze, but said no workers were harmed.

The Smithfield farm housed about 45,000 sows, according to the company’s website.

Luke Kanclerz, spokesman for the Oklahoma Forestry Services, said on Friday that several thousand hogs “were lost.”

“Such a large area was impacted by these fires, it’s taking time to collect information,” he said. “There are no accurate numbers yet.”

Kanclerz said state officials were at the Smithfield farm on Friday, collecting information on how many animals had died and other data.

“While we are deeply thankful that no employees were harmed in the fire, we lament the unnecessary loss of animals and the devastation to the surrounding community,” Smithfield spokeswoman Kathleen Kirkham said.

Smithfield is the world’s largest pork producer, raising about 16 million hogs per year. It is owned by Chinese-based WH Group.

Wildfires also killed about 1,900 hogs at two of Seaboard Foods’ farms south of Perryton, Texas, company spokesman David Eaheart said.

About 1.2 million acres burned within 24 hours on Monday in the Texas Panhandle, northwestern Oklahoma and adjacent parts of southwestern Kansas, said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration meteorologist Patrick Marsh. Smaller fires also burned in Colorado, Nebraska and part of the Florida Everglades, he said.

Firefighters on Friday were still working to contain the blazes that killed at least six people.

Officials with Clark County, Kansas, estimated as many as 9,000 head of cattle are dead, according to a statement from U.S. Senator Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican.

As crews dispose of animal carcasses, Oklahoma state veterinarian Rod Hall said the economic impact to farmers could be compounded by a psychological blow. In Gray County, Texas, a woman and two men died on Monday, after they tried to move their cattle out of the fire’s path.

“This is the way these people were making a living and they take their livestock seriously,” Hall said.

— Reporting for Reuters by Michael Hirtzer and Renita D. Young in Chicago; writing by P.J. Huffstutter.

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The weed grows very fast, reaching up to eight feet in height and can hold back commercial crops, potentially threatening hundreds of millions of dollars of production.

Yield losses have been reported of up to 91 per cent in corn and 79 per cent in soybeans, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), in areas where the weed has previously been found.

The weed is native to the dry, southwestern part of the U.S. In some parts of that region, it has developed resistance to glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup and other herbicides.

The federal Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) pays farmers to return tilled acreage to native plants. The Minnesota investigation is seeking to determine if the program inadvertently introduced the weed into the state.

Palmer amaranth also has appeared in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Nebraska, Wisconsin and Michigan, including on land in the federal conservation program. Growers and weed experts on the Canadian Prairies and in border states such as North Dakota are also watching the weed’s northward progress into the Plains region.

Minnesota tracked down the weed on the conservation areas in the southwestern part of the state, after the person who created the seed mix and planted it said that the plots might be contaminated. He had been alerted by a client who had spotted the weed on conservation land, according to state agriculture department spokesman Allen Sommerfeld.

Minnesota now wants to find out where the weed seed came from and how it got into the conservation mix, according to University of Minnesota professor and extension weed scientist Jeff Gunsolus, a researcher involved in the investigation.

Under the state’s seed law, it is illegal to sell or transport seed mixes containing the Palmer amaranth seed. Penalties can include fines of up to $7,500 per day, Sommerfeld said (all figures US$).

Investigators are interviewing individuals, including some at seed companies, as well as analyzing seeds and mixes, and checking the accuracy of seed labels, said Clifford Watrin, a supervisor of seed law at the state’s agriculture department.

Last week, Watrin told native seed suppliers and planters in a letter that extra monitoring of seed supply was needed. The agriculture department now has a DNA test for Palmer amaranth seeds, as the seed cannot be distinguished from other weed seeds by sight. Agriculture officials hope this test will help stop more Palmer amaranth seeds from entering the local market.

Minnesota has set aside $50,000 for the investigation, said Watrin. Governor Mark Dayton has called for another $300,000 a year to boost resources for enforcing state regulation over weeds, Sommerfeld said.

Though Palmer amaranth has also appeared in conservation plantings in other states, it has been hard to narrow down the source.

Farmers of commercial crops have been keen to sign up for the federal conservation program to supplement incomes as grain prices fall. USDA said Tuesday it expects net farm income to fall in 2017 to its lowest level since 2002.

USDA told Reuters it was aware of the problem present in seed mixes, but does not monitor seed lots purchased by participants.

— Renita D. Young is a multimedia journalist covering commodities for Reuters in Chicago. Includes files from AGCanada.com Network staff.

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Wheat followed corn higher in largely technical trade while soybeans eased on profit-taking. But all three markets posted weekly gains.

Chicago Board of Trade March corn settled up 3-1/2 cents at $3.69-3/4 a bushel after reaching $3.70, its highest since mid-July (all figures US$). For the week, the contract rose 11-1/4 cents or 3.1 per cent.

Corn got a boost when the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s weekly export sales report put corn sales at nearly 1.4 million tonnes, topping a range of trade expectations.

USDA also said private exporters in the last day sold 126,312 tonnes of U.S. corn to unknown destinations.

The export figures came on the heels of government data released Thursday that showed U.S. production of corn-based ethanol reaching a record-high for the third straight week.

“We are seeing a support coming from yesterday’s ethanol report that shows that 12 consecutive weeks of production over one million barrels a week… (and) a very strong week of exports this week. There’s a decent demand in this market,” said Brian Hoops, analyst with Midwest Marketing Solutions.

Wheat followed corn higher, although weekly wheat export sales fell below trade expectations. Commodity funds hold a large net short position in CBOT wheat, leaving the market vulnerable to bouts of short-covering.

Soybean futures drifted lower on profit-taking and what appeared to be long liquidation after a rally this week to six-month highs.

However, for the week, CBOT March soybeans rose 21-1/4 cents or two per cent, buoyed by floods in Argentina that have raised concern about soy crop prospects. Traders continue to assess the extent of damage.

The Rosario grains exchange on Thursday cut its forecast for the 2016-17 Argentine soybean crop to 52.9 million tonnes from 54.4 million tonnes previously because of bad weather.

The Buenos Aires grains exchange, meanwhile, trimmed its soybean planting estimate by 100,000 hectares to 19.2 million hectares (47.4 million acres) and warned of the potential for further losses.

“The Buenos Aires grains exchange said more than half of that area could be lost, depending on how the weather pans out over the next few weeks,” said Tobin Gorey, director of agricultural strategy at Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

“Affected regions are expected to dry down over the coming days.”

— Reporting for Reuters by Julie Ingwersen and Renita D. Young; additional reporting for Reuters by Naveen Thukral in Singapore and Gus Trompiz in Paris.

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Wheat and corn closed lower on a round of profit-taking after multi-month highs.

Chicago Board of Trade March soybeans settled up 5-3/4 cents at $10.75 per bushel after reaching $10.80, the contract’s highest level since mid-July (all figures US$).

“Traders are just getting bulled up that we’re going to lose a good amount of beans in Argentina,” said Terry Reilly, senior commodity analyst with Futures International in Chicago.

“The hot and dry weather that is expected to set in this week is not favorable for plants after seeing localized flooding. It poses a risk of one extreme to the next,” Reilly said.

Soybeans are processed into soymeal, a high-protein animal feed ingredient, and soyoil, which is used in foods and in biodiesel fuel. As with soybeans, spot CBOT soymeal  futures set a six-month top.

“The soybean meal market lead the charge today. With Argentina being the No. 1 world exporter of soybean meal, it’s all about the ongoing Argentine growing situation,” said commodity broker Tom Fritz of EFG Group in Chicago.

Heavy rain inundated key Argentinian soybean-growing areas over the weekend, raising doubts about the crop in a season which has already seen a reduction in soy planting as growers turn more toward corn.

Corn closed lower after a back-and-forth session. CBOT March corn settled down 1/2 cent at $3.65 per bushel after reaching $3.67-3/4, its highest since Oct. 20, a level that appeared to trigger profit-taking and farmer selling in the U.S. Midwest.

Wheat also eased, with the CBOT March contract ending down 2-1/2 cents at $4.31 per bushel.

A rebound in the dollar added pressure, making U.S. grains less attractive on the global marketplace.

The U.S. dollar index rose after hitting a nearly six-week low the previous day after U.S. president-elect Donald Trump complained that dollar strength was hurting trade relations with China.

— Reporting for Reuters by Julie Ingwersen and Renita D. Young; additional reporting for Reuters by Michael Hogan and Naveen Thukral.

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