(Lakefield)– The harvest season is upon us. Jim Nesseth of Extended Ag Services in Lakefield estimates that about 25 to 30 percent of the soybean crop locally has been harvested. He says as expected, yields vary greatly…
“Surprisingly we’ve got a few fields that were planted early and didn’t have a lot of drowned out spots that are yielding in that upper 50’s flirting with 60 bushels in this particular area. And then of course, the other side, we’ve got some that haven’t made 30 bushel. So it’s going to be a wide range of yields but it’s just kind of what we’ve got to deal with through this particular year.”
Nesseth says other than silage cutting, the corn harvest is yet to get started. He says based on assessments, yields for that crop are expected to be wide ranging as well…
“It never really had that good root system that got developed because of that wet spring and so a lot of this corn is starting to shut down and again we’ve got some places where we didn’t have too much excess moisture and some pretty good drainage. We’ve got some yields there that I think, you know, are around that 200 bushel but there’s a lot below 150 or less. Again, I think we’re going to have the same kind of situation that we’re seeing in soybeans right now, just a wide range of yields.”
Nesseth adds the warm, dry, weather we’re experiencing is a huge benefit for late planted crops…
“There’s a lot of beans that were planted the end of June and the first part of July even, so maybe they have a chance of getting some type of bushels, but the corn is going to dry down and maybe that’ll save some money on drying cost and buying less propane, so that’s good. Soil structure is going to be pretty dry and with tillage there we’re going to have that soil structure shatter instead of smear, so that’s another good thing, and break up some compaction. Overall I mean it’s pretty ideal to have this nice of weather.”
There’s no rain in the forecast through at least early next week.
