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Farmer near Canada border close to finishing soybean harvest

A northwest Minnesota producer who farms 25 miles from the Canada border is nearly finished harvesting soybeans.

Shayne Isane of Badger calls 2016 a challenging year with heavy spring rains, but says conditions were fit to begin combining beans ahead of sunflowers and corn.

“We’ve been pleasantly surprised.  We are in an area that didn’t get hit quite as hard with rain.  We’ve heard (yields) range from 1o bushel soybeans to 50 bushels.  On our farm we’ve been very fortunate to be probably on the higher end of that range.”

Isane takes special considerations growing crops so far north.

“We have to be very selective of our varieties.  We raise mostly a 00 (double-oh) soybean and about a 70 to 80 day corn.  So we have to be aware of our little bit shorter growing season up here.”

Isane estimates he and his brother are about 75 percent done with soybeans, and plan to move right into harvesting sunflowers.