News

Slow harvest isn’t surprising

Soybean harvest wrapped up last week for Greentown, Ind. farmer Dennis Maple.  He says he wasn’t surprised at how slow harvest has gone – because the weather has been an issue throughout the growing season.  “In regards to soybeans, we weren’t too blessed in May after we planted,” he says.  “We had some ponding issues in some of our soybean fields – those early planted fields.  They didn’t yield quite as well as I anticipated, but they were still in the mid 50’s.  Our later varieties did better, they were in the 60’s, plus.”

But, that cool, wet weather didn’t hurt Maple’s corn crop this year. “The corn has been a good crop,” he says.  “We’ve had an excellent corn crop this year.   Maybe one of our best ever.  The quality has been good but the test weight has been a little lighter than normal.  But that’s not uncommon for such a big crop.”

Maple tells Brownfield, if the weather cooperates – he should be able to complete harvest within the next two weeks.