Posted: 10.19.2010

Wow!  Midwest farmers may be walking zombies because of the work they've been performing for what seems like months - but they're smiling that they can be so far ahead with the harvest.

Long lines at grain elevators and the lack of storage capacity may be about the only thing slowing down the combines and semi's.  In this week's crop quality update - many reporters said that hours are being spent in long caravans of semi's, gravity boxes, and grain carts - all waiting their turn to dump their crop.

The Wisconsin Ag Statistical Service endorsed that feeling with its Monday Crop Quality Update.  It shows statewide - 86 percent of the soybeans are already harvested.  That's a full 37 percent ahead of the five year average.  It's the kind of mark that makes farmers glance at the calendar in amazement.  Just a year ago, most farmers in the midwest were facing cool, wet conditions - and a crop that wasn't nearly ready for harvest.

The same shock is visible in the Wisconsin corn crop.  Corn silage harvest is virtually wrapped up - and 50 percent of the corn remaining has already been harvested for grain.  Once again, that mark is 28 percent ahead of the five year average.  Most growers are also very pleased at not only the volume of crop they're harvesting - but also how dry the grain is.  That lower grain moisture content means farmers will have to pay less to their grain elevator to dry it down mechanically for storage.  That also, hopefully, means the grain storage facility can better manage the mounds of grain that are piling up around the state.

The dry weather's not helping everybody though.  Multiple reporters around Wisconsin said that pasture conditions are starting to be of concern without any measure moisture in October.  The dry weather's also creating a rock hard soil surface that is stopping any fall tillage from really advancing.

« back to news articles