By Jolene FarleyBeaver Creek farmer Spencer Sells was attending FarmFest in Redwood Falls when the storm hit Rock County last Tuesday. "We started hearing reports of a storm coming through," he said. When he called home, he was told the storm packed high winds and his corn was "about two feet off the ground."His first thought when he saw his fields was, "How are we going to harvest something laying that flat and how much did we lose?"All of Sells’ corn acres in Beaver Creek Township were damaged and the effect on yields will be unknown until after harvest. "The wind was so strong it’s surprising anything was still standing," he said.Since the storm, about 50 percent of Sells’ corn has recovered, but many of the ears are still close to the ground, and some corn was uprooted and would have to develop new root systems to thrive. The weather for the rest of the growing season and during harvest will determine how the crops recover, according to Sells. Another windstorm closer to harvest or wet weather could further damage the crops. "We don’t want any more weather to interfere with filling that kernel," he said.Sells’ corn had pollinated, otherwise his fields would have been a total loss because corn cannot pollinate lying close to the ground.Sells said he’d never seen anything like the damage this storm caused, but he feels fortunate that he didn’t lose any buildings. Farmers are scratching their heads wondering how to harvest the fields with tangled stalks, some stalks up, some stalks down. "They are going to be extremely hard to harvest," Sells said. "It’s probably going to be a lot of trial and error."