By STEPHANIE FARLEY

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sfarley@gctelegram.com

As area residents surveyed damage to their homes, vehicles and other property from Monday night's hail and rain storm, Ken Jameson, with Garden City Co-op, tried to get a handle on storm damage to the agricultural industry.

But from what he found, the storm "looks like it mainly dumped on the town," Jameson said, adding the damage, size of hail and amount of rain were "spotty" and varied in the area.

At the Lakin grain elevator, they "didn't get a sprinkle," he said. But the amounts varied throughout the area.

Jameson said the Ulysses saw .1 inches of rain, with no hail; Gano had .7 inches; and Friend saw 1.5 inches of rain and no hail. Then Jameson heard of the area north of Pierceville, east of the airport, getting 1.5 to 2 inches of rain, but not much hail; Dighton had no rain or hail on Monday night; and other areas received some rain and/or hail, or nothing at all.

And others in areas that received no rainfall were able to remain on their tractors to plant corn, Jameson said, adding other comments he heard pointed to the benefit from moisture far outweighing the damage hail either did or could've done.

More rain came Tuesday and was forecast for today. But so far, damaging hail looked to be confined to Monday's storm.

According to the National Weather Service at Dodge City, within the past 24 hours, the Garden City experiment station has had .48 inches of rain; .34 inches on the east edge of town; and .07 inches at Garden City Regional Airport.

Finney County Commissioner Roman Halbur said hail took off leaves on his trees and "mowed" the weeds on his property. The storm also took out some of his garden and left enough hail on the property to leave his yard white on Tuesday morning.

Russell Komlofske experienced significant damage during a storm last August to a portion of his corn crop. At that time, he was looking at bent-over corn stalks and about 800 acres (750 of it corn) worth of damage to corn and milo in Finney and Haskell counties. Damage was caused by hail, hard rain and high wind speeds.

But on Tuesday, Komlofske was unsure of damage he might see from this storm, saying it could take several days for damage to show itself in the upcoming wheat crop. As of Tuesday afternoon, he had not been able to walk some of his fields, yet, to survey possible damage.

Komlofske said he was thankful that the spring crops, such as corn and soybeans, either haven't been planted or aren't far along yet. His soybeans are still in the bag.

"It's a good place for them right now," he said.

Finney County Extension Agent Dean "Whitey" Whitehill surveyed some of the damage on Tuesday and saw the worst of it on the east side of Garden City. Hail damage is patchy, he said.

Some fields could be a total loss, he said, but then there are others with less damage.

According to Ed Banning, with Ag Management Consultants, 2606 Fleming St., he and other consults are taking "a wait and see attitude" to possible damage to the wheat crop. It's been too muddy to go out in the fields, he said, so "it's really hard to tell at this point" what damage Monday's storm caused.

But wheat's a fairly resilient crop, Banning said. The majority of wheat's in the jointing stage, which involves the stem extending, nodes developing and the head of the wheat plant continuing to move upward. he said damage consists of hail bending and kinking the stem, which is problematic because it prevents nutrients from moving up the stem.

It's not necessarily a "deathblow" to the plant, though, Banning said, because he's seen stems damaged in the past on plants that have turned out to produce well.

Banning's heard of anywhere from 10 percent to 60 percent damage in fields between Garden City, Holcomb, and north of town.

If the plant's hammered to the ground or chopped off at the top, it's more than likely done, Banning said.