News

Final day of harvest for Illinois farmer

A central Illinois farmer is harvesting his final field of the season today.

Elliott Uphoff of Findlay in Shelby County tells Brownfield it’s a 34-acre corn field they planted on May 31^st.

“As long as we don’t break down, we will be done today. They are calling for 1 to 3 inches of rain tomorrow, so we are finishing just in the nick of time.”

He tells Brownfield they will welcome the rain, but the dry weather did allow harvest to go smoothly.

“We are going to get all of the crops out without making any tracks, which is a really nice change compared to last year when we started in mud, finished in the mud and made a lot of messes.”

He says while yields aren’t quite as high as he was expecting, his farm averages are above normal at around 220 bushels per acre for corn and 70 bpa for soybeans.

“The beans are the ones that kind of disappointed. They looked so good all year, but it turns out we had too much rain in July and August which I didn’t know was possible for beans. It is a very good crop, I’m not going to be upset about a 70 bushel average, but we did expect it to be a little better.”

He says they also got through the season with very few mechanical issues which is a relief considering the challenges with parts availability.