Wet harvest advancing, yields looking good

(Photo by Randy Cauthron) An area farmer deposited his newly harvested grain Thursday afternoon at the Ag Partners location in Royal. [Order this photo]

With grain dryers running nonstop across the state, harvest proceeded in force this week as several dry days finally appeared.

The most recent Iowa Crops and Weather report released by the USDA National Agricultural Statistical Service revealed corn harvest for grain had reached an 18 percent completion rating, which was 22 percent behind last year and five days behind the five-year average. The moisture content for all corn in the field was estimated at 26 percent, or 7 percentage points higher than the five-year average.

While the moisture content of corn harvested was estimated at 23 percent in the report, Iowa's corn crop condition rating had increased to 82 percent good to excellent by Sunday, with yields looking like they may approach the 186 per bushel record yield forecast set by the USDA.

Soybeans harvested had reached the 54 percent completion level, which was 38 percent behind last year and 26 days behind the five-year average. The crop's condition was rated as 16 percent being excellent, 53 percent good, 21 percent fair, 7 percent poor and 3 percent very poor.

State leaders weigh in on slow, wet harvest

"The wet weather kept farmers out of the fields again much of last week, and as a result, just a little progress was made on harvest. This is now the slowest harvest since at least the 1960s," Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey said earlier this week. "It is unusual for both corn and bean harvest to be delayed so significantly. However, with drier weather forecast for this week, hopefully farmers will be able to get into the fields and significant progress will be able to be made."

According to local cooperative and elevator representatives, that is exactly what happened this week.

By midweek, farmer leaders on the Iowa Corn Growers Association Board and the Iowa Corn Promotion Board gathered via conference call to talk about harvest conditions in the state, including this fall's wet weather, the ensuing slow harvest and current grain quality. They revealed that corn farmers across the state are voicing optimism about the upcoming weather and their ability to make up time on this year's harvest.

"Corn growers have a different set of weather conditions to deal with each season," Gary Woodley, a Clarion farmer and chairman of the Exports and Grain Trade committee, said. "Each year brings challenges, but I have never met a corn grower who wasn't up to the challenge to bring in the crop."

During Wednesday's conference call with corn producers, Dr. Charles Hurburgh of Iowa State University's Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Department offered advice on how to handle high moisture corn and mold problems.

"Corn coming out of the field with visible mold should be segregated and samples should be saved for testing," he recommended. "Right now, we are seeing some mold, more in hail damaged areas. So far, only the hail damaged areas have shown toxin levels high enough to affect swine and poultry, but not feedlot cattle."

Woodley quickly assured members of the general public, "Corn growers watch the crop through planting and harvest like you might watch over your children. We will continue to monitor the corn crop from the field to the bin to the ethanol plant, and even to rail or river for our overseas markets. Growing corn is what we do, whether it rains or shines. This season has just brought a little more rain that we wanted."

A local perspective on the 2009 harvest

Tom Edwards, who serves as the location leader and grain merchandiser at the Ag Partners Royal location, said Friday afternoon that they were fielding "pretty heavy receipts on soybeans this year, heavier than normal. I think a lot of it's due to higher moistures and (farmers not being) able to store it on the farm. (They're) needing to get good air to it to get the beans dried back down, so I think more of these beans came to town this year."

"Cornwise," he continued, "a lot of corn is coming to town now. Everything is pretty much switched over, and it sounds like yields are going to be fairly decent this year, so we should have a lot of corn to come in. But, right now, we're just struggling with higher moistures than we're used to."

While average moisture levels had been running anywhere from 21 up to 24 1/2 percent on corn this week, Edwards reported area soybeans are back down to around a 13 percent moisture level.

In regard to the yields they've been seeing at the Royal location, Edwards smiled as he said, "We're just getting started on corn, but they're going to be decent, and I think guys are going to be happy."

The local harvest, meanwhile, has advanced greatly over the last two weeks. While he estimated at least 95 percent of beans are out of area fields, the local grain merchandiser didn't think half of the cornfields had been harvested yet.

"We're able to handle the bushels no problem," Edwards added, "it's just getting it dried down is where the slowdown is. The drying capacities at the elevators of today just can't handle this volume of grain coming in as wet as it is."

When asked how the local Ag Partners location is addressing this, he replied, "We're just cutting back on hours or on what we can receive daily so we can get it dried or hauled away to another one of our facilities to be dried."