From the Fields: Time is ticking

Big yields have been a highlight for the 2021 season. We have had some serious rains to finish up the week. The weather change has been a wake-up call for the final push. Corn yields are still great. We got into some corn we replanted on June 6 that was around 26% to 27% moisture. We didn’t want to run it that wet, but with the weather getting more adverse, we decided to go ahead and get it out while we could still get the trucks into the field to load out. It was running around that 230 to 240 range and even with that high of moisture is still impressive for June-planted corn in our area.

We continue to see good yields come in on corn, but I think the bean crop will be better for us than corn. We are seeing some real good numbers, but no records being set for us. We have seen some quality issues not only in our corn, but other around us because of cob rot. We’ve never experienced this, and it doesn’t seem to be hybrid or maturity specific. Thank goodness we haven’t had it bad enough to be rejected at the elevator, but it’s concerning when you don’t really know what’s causing it or why it happens in one field and not the next. We hope we can see some drier corn, but the weather doesn’t look good for drying, so we will probably have the dryer running nonstop until all the corn is harvested.

We got pounded with rain on Wednesday and Thursday and left us sitting for a few days to let stuff dry up. We hope to be back into the fields by Tuesday, but that’s yet to be determined. We had dry weather to cut first crop beans and got spoiled. Now we will have to really watch the weather and pick and choose our days to run the double-crop beans. That’s the goal, to get them out while we can before the next round of rain and weather come in. It’s always amazing how the ground can go from one extreme to the other so fast this time of year.

With the mornings getting chilly and the weather changing over, it’s starting to feel like we need to get going and get this crop out. We aren’t in bad shape and there’s a lot of crop ran in our area. But we all know when it gets wet and cloudy it gets hard to find a whole day or two to run. We had intentions on getting some cover crops on this year again, as well, but it’s not looking good for that job either. I hope everyone is making good progress with harvest and has great yields to keep us motivated to finish the 2020 season.

Hope, Ind.