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Up and down #harvest19 for Minnesota farmer

It’s been a rocky harvest for many farmers.

Martin Larsen, who grows corn and soybeans in southeast Minnesota, says the fall started on a high note.

“If I recall, we started combining our early soybeans on September 26th, and of course they were our best soybeans. They were into the 70’s and that was pretty exciting to be combining beans that were yielding that well.”

The Byron grain farmer tells Brownfield it was mostly downhill from there, culminating with the end of his corn harvest earlier this week.

“The yields were significantly reduced, 40 percent reductions. You didn’t really like looking at that yield monitor when you have those kind of yields.”

Larson says this was the worst corn crop he’s ever harvested.  He blames persistently wet conditions that washed away nutrients and limited root development.