(Lakefield, Mn.)– Ideal conditions have allowed the harvest to kick into high gear across the region. Jim Nesseth of Extended Ag Services in Lakefield says producers are making excellent progress with the soybeans…
“It’s going through that combine really nice, it’s really dusty, and the moisture content of the soybeans is, I think it was probably in the 13, 14’s this weekend but it’s getting down there. We hope it doesn’t get too dry, but right now it’s just about perfect conditions. We’ve got a lot of beans coming out at about 11, 12 percent, so that’s good.”
He says yields are somewhat variable but for the most part are meeting or exceeding expectations…
“There’s some exceptionally good yields out there in some places were we had some corn-on-corn with some history and we’ve seen some good yields up there, 70 bushels or better, some even higher in some cases have been reported, so that’s fantastic. But then on the other side of the coin, beans that had a lot of moisture stress have been down there in the low 40’s and some perhaps lower than that. But I think overall, Steve, we’re going to see a lot of beans in that 45 to 55 bushel range and that’s good considering the dryness that we had.”
Nesseth says there are some quality issues, though…
“We have some purple stain on some of the beans from a soybean disease that we have, and then we’re seeing some mold too in some of the beans. We’re seeing some damage up to 5 to 10 percent so that’s important for producers to make sure that gets documented because anything over eight percent dockage we can turn that in for a quality claim for crop insurance. So it’s really important to watch that moisture if we’re going to bin the beans. That seems to be going good but I think overall the purple stain we’re not real concerned about with and as far as the storage and the mold we’ll just have to watch and monitor that.”
And while the soybean harvest is moving very quickly, Nesseth expects it will be different with the corn…
“Some of that corn is down a little bit so there will be some more challenges with the corn. I expect that harvest to go at a lot slower pace just because of that, but right now the beans have priority and you know we get those cut and out we’ll definitely move into the corn.”
And with the harvest going full tilt, Nesseth reminds everyone to use extra caution, including motorists who need to be aware of slow moving equipment on the roads and reduced visibility from harvest dust.
