Dave Duttlinger’s first thought when he saw a dense band of yellowish-brown dust smearing the sky above his Indiana farm was: I warned them this would happen. About 445 acres of his fields near Wheatfield, Indiana, are covered in solar panels and related machinery – land that in April 2019 Duttlinger leased to Dunns Bridge Solar LLC, for one of the largest solar developments in the Midwest.

On that blustery spring afternoon in 2022, Duttlinger said, his phone rang with questions from frustrated neighbors: Why is dust from your farm inside my truck? Inside my house? Who should I call to clean it up?

According to Duttlinger’s solar lease, reviewed by Reuters, Dunns Bridge said it would use “commercially reasonable efforts to minimize any damage to and disturbance of growing crops and crop land caused by its construction activities” outside the project site and “not remove topsoil” from the property itself. Still, sub-contractors graded Duttlinger’s fields to assist the building of roads and installation of posts and panels, he said, despite his warnings that it could make the land more vulnerable to erosion.

“I’ll never be able to grow anything on that field again,” the farmer said. About one-third of his approximately 1,200-acre farm – where his family grows corn, soybeans and alfalfa for cattle – has been leased.

  • girlfreddy@lemmy.caOP
    72·
    6 months ago

    It’s not only construction. It’s also about having windbreaks (ie: hedgerows, small clumps or full lines of bushy trees, etc) that stop the soil from blowing away in the wind.

    I know this because I grew up on the Canadian prairies where backhoes yearly dig up all the topsoil that’s accumulated in the ditches, which the farmers then respread on their fields.

    There are a lot more windbreaks now than when I was a child.

    • Bonehead@kbin.social
      102·
      6 months ago

      If only there was some sort of manmade structures that could act as a windbreak while also producing electricity, that would an amazing advancement…

      • girlfreddy@lemmy.caOP
        17·
        6 months ago

        Why would a farmer spend money on building a structure when trees will grow freely at minimal cost?

        Smdh

            • Bonehead@kbin.social
              6·
              6 months ago

              What do windmills have anything to do with solar panels? Don’t try to change the subject…

              • girlfreddy@lemmy.caOP
                13·
                6 months ago

                I misunderstood you then.

                What kind of structure would you have the farmer spend money to build then?

                  • girlfreddy@lemmy.caOP
                    12·
                    6 months ago

                    Dave Duttlinger’s first thought when he saw a dense band of yellowish-brown dust smearing the sky above his Indiana farm was: I warned them this would happen.

                    The wind picked up the sand the solar power company laid on the property after leveling it.

                    Crews reshaped the landscape, spreading fine sand across large stretches of rich topsoil, Duttlinger said. When Reuters visited his farm last year and this spring, much of the land beneath the panels was covered in yellow-brown sand, where no plants grew.

                    So please explain to me how solar panels act as windbreaks.

        • SeaJ@lemm.ee
          21·
          6 months ago

          You mean why would farmers build wind turbines…like they already do and make money from? Is that a serious question?

            • SeaJ@lemm.ee
              2·
              6 months ago

              My apologies. I thought OP was talking about wind turbines which do help slow down wind, BTW but would not be considered a windbreak. What can be a windbreak though is vertical solar panels which is likely what they were talking about.