Crop Conditions

Widespread rain shut down harvest late last week with most of this region receiving 2 to 5 inches of rain over two days. What’s amazing, even in the heavy rain areas there was very little runoff, and the ground didn’t get soft past the top few inches. Widescale harvest resumed this week on Tuesday. The rain is a good start toward rebuilding soil moisture for next year, but more rain would be beneficial before the ground freezes. The extended weather outlook calls for average to below average temperatures and better than average chances for rainfall over the next two weeks. It may be a little hit or miss with the weather, but it still looks like harvest will be nearly finished around November 1st which is just slightly ahead of average timeline.

Soybean harvest is about done. Most of the beans were out before the rain last week, but the rest are just getting fit again to go today or tomorrow. Yields were variable again this year depending on the soil quality and rainfall. Overall, yields were better than expected on soybeans. Most farms with heavy soil were able to get 60 to 70 bushels per acre. The significant rain in early August made a big difference.

Corn harvest is getting up to full speed this week. Corn moisture levels increased a couple points from the rain. Overall, I’m finding corn is a little wetter than I expected this week but still not bad. We are worried about corn going down because it was stressed late in the season, so the stalks may be weak. So far, most corn has held up well. Corn yields are more variable than beans this year. Most corn yield data is yet to come in. I think the inconsistent rainfall in early July made a big difference. It looks like good farms will have corn yields well over 200 bushels per acre, but there are exceptions to that with some surprisingly poor yields especially in the southern parts of this territory. In the areas with good corn this year, we are seeing some very impressive yields way above average.