Crops thrive despite roller-coaster season

SALEM, Ind. — Deidra Roell is a fifth-generation grain farmer in Washington County in southern Indiana.

She shared the latest from her farm with AgriNews.

Q: How are the areas that were affected by heavy rain and washouts earlier in the season showing up now that harvest is underway?

A: Overall, it’s been incredibly dusty where some of the downed areas of crops are being harvested. We really haven’t gotten into harvesting any of the areas that were affected by the washouts yet. We will be moving to that farm next week or so probably.

There is definitely increased weed pressure where the drowned-out areas had the heaviest impact. Outside of that, we will have to wait and see what the harvest shows us once we open those fields up with the combine in the next few weeks.

Q: What has been the biggest surprise of the 2026 growing season now that you can look back on most of it?

A: The biggest surprise for me has been with all of the extremes that have been packed into this growing season that we have seen as solid and consistent yields across the cornfields as we have.

From incredibly warm and dry early planting conditions, late frost, torrential downpours and flooding rains, followed by more incredibly dry conditions throughout remainder of growing season, and unseasonably hot and dry conditions throughout the end of the growing season and into early harvest, I’m pleasantly surprised to see how well the crops have continued to perform.

Q: What does a typical harvest day look like for your family, and what role do you personally take on during harvest?

A: Harvest days can look different depending on my off-the-farm job responsibilities and schedule. Usually, I end up taking some vacation days in the fall to spend more time on the farm helping with harvest. Those will be coming up a little later in October.

On standard weekdays, I work my off-the-farm job for the start of my day and then head back, pick up our daughter from day care and meet the crew to start helping with harvest late afternoon and early evening.

My husband and dad work on the farm full time and will be busy running the combine and trying to truck to keep up all day. Then once Ryleigh and I show up, we run the grain cart for the evenings and help keep the flow of grain moving a little more efficiently until we shut it down and call it a night.

My mom and sister are really great about helping with our daughter throughout the week and will sometimes either grab her from day care or come pick her up from the field to help get her some time out of the cab.

On weekends, we usually have my dad, husband and myself all working on the farm all day. My dad likes to run combine mostly, so I usually will run grain cart if he is working for the day. I run the combine when he’s not in it.

Depending on what the trucking situation looks like, sometimes I end up running the tandem to the bin and filling bins while my husband delivers the semitrucks to the grain elevators. Ultimately, I just do whatever is needed at the time.

Q: What is your favorite harvest tradition, meal or moment that makes the long days worthwhile?

A: I don’t know if I can pick a favorite harvest moment as there’s so many things that I love about harvest. I love the view of a freshly cut bean field, the pace of filling carts as fast as you can dump trucks and the feeling of keeping everything moving in synchrony.

I always love taking pictures of the harvest work and especially sunsets. I particularly love our harvest pictures from “cemetery hill” on my parent’s home farm.

The views from the hill are usually beautiful, but add in a beautiful harvest sunset and the view is truly breathtaking.

When it comes to harvest meals, I love soups, pot pies and stews as fall and harvest weather really sets in because of the ease of prepping and reheating, but honestly it’s been so hot still that it’s not quite hit soup and stew weather for me quite yet.

Truthfully, we just eat what we can make fast and easy because it’s usually late when we are finally getting a chance to eat.

We have a harvest tradition where we take an end-of-harvest picture every year. More than anything else, I love our family time together in harvest and around the farm in general.

We are a pretty close-knit family regularly, but I love the pictures, stories, shared meals in the field and adventures that we get to share as a family.

It’s fun to watch our little girl get to experience new things on the farm and the joy it brings everyone around her.

Q: Any Farm Bureau activities, family milestones or other updates you’d like to share?

A: I was incredibly disappointed to miss out on the Harvest Dinner Celebrating Women in Agriculture held earlier in September, but I had some schedule conflicts and couldn’t make it work.

At the county level, we just recently hosted our Washington County Farm Bureau annual meeting and it was a success. The Young Farmers & Ag Professionals in the county helped to host the final round of the FFA discussion meet at the event and it was another year of engaging discussion by FFA youth about ongoing ag issues.

The discussion meet event is one of my favorites for the year to see the collaboration of the board of directors, the YF&AP, the FFA students and advisers showcase some of the FFA youth in the community while also introducing them to more Farm Bureau opportunities for engagement.

As a family, we just celebrated my dad’s 77th birthday at the end of September. We celebrated by spending the day in the field, doing what he loves most — farming and harvesting — followed by a family dinner at the house. My mom makes a homemade caramel-iced yellow cake for him every year that is yummy.

Ryleigh continues to grow like a weed and is learning new words and actions all the time. Seeing her on the farm, bouncing through the field in the tractor and combine, waving as we pass her papaw each time and enjoying being a farm kid is something that really brings us great joy.