Corn yields very good despite dry June

MAPLE PARK, Ill. — Even though there was a significant dry period during the early portion of the growing season, Chris Gould is harvesting a very good corn crop this year.

“Last year was a record for corn yields, but the yields this year will probably be the second highest, and how that is, I have no idea,” said Gould, who grows corn, soybeans and wheat with his wife, Dana, on their Kane County farm in northeastern Illinois.

“This field looked horrible where it was compacted from the application of biosolids this spring, so I really thought there would be zero crop there,” Gould said. “The corn got to about 8 inches tall and looked like it was going to roll over and die.”

After a six-week dry period, it rained on June 24 in northern Illinois.

“Then we got nice, regular rains through July and a little dry spell in August, but it was not devastating,” Gould said. “This 100-acre field is at 232 bushels.”

On Nov. 5, Gould harvested corn on a farm that received an application of biosolids in the fall.

“That farm has a lot of water problems that we can’t do much about because it’s by the tollway, which distorts the water flow,” he said. “We set a record yield on that farm and I attribute that to biosolids.”

Soybean yields this year were not as good.

“All in all, soybeans were pretty disappointing. I’ll be shocked if we average 65 bushels,” Gould said. “They are probably over 60, but less than 65 bushels and I don’t count on 70-bushel beans, but I’m disappointed if they’re not 70 bushels.”

White mold had a negative impact on yields on one of Gould’s fields.

“And part of it was the dry June, which slowed the beans down so much they became a late crop,” he said.

Harvest has been mostly smooth for Gould, even during Oct. 31 when it snowed hard in squalls while he harvested corn.

“I thought we were done, so I’d stop and look at the chaffer and sieve to see if they were gumming up and they didn’t,” Gould said.

“The snow was starting to stick to the plants, so a couple of times I told the trucks not to come back,” he said. “Then five minutes later, the snow would stop — it was a strange day.”

The field of corn Gould harvested on Nov. 7 was planted May 5-6.

“That was pretty early in our corn planting and this 114-day corn is at 22% moisture which is pretty wet for today,” Gould said.

“I talked to a buddy yesterday and he had corn that didn’t germinate until late and it was still over 30% moisture,” he said. “He is eight miles north of here and they’re parking the combines because they don’t want to dry 30% corn.”

As of Nov. 7, Gould expected to complete his corn harvest in about a week.

“We are going at a more measured pace to keep our trucks moving,” he said. “We are down to 12 hours instead of 16-hour days.”

On the day before, Gould finished a field that had some corn leaning over.

“That got my attention because it was the first stalks I’d seen laying down all year,” he said. “So, maybe a little rootworm came in or a dust of wind, but before that I hadn’t seen any problems with corn standing.”

During Nov. 10-11, Gould planned to help harvest about 800 acres of corn for a neighbor’s family.

“He passed away two weeks ago, so we’re going to get his corn this weekend,” he said. “The challenge is he has 20-inch rows, so it’s hard to find 20-inch corn heads in this part of the world, but there will be three machines working.”

For the first time in decades, Gould decided not to plant much wheat on his farm this year.

“We always had to plant wheat because we needed a place to spread hog manure,” he said. “When the hogs wound down, Ukraine wound up so that made wheat prices attractive.”

The first time Gould didn’t have hog manure to apply, he planted beans following the wheat harvest.

“The beans did almost 40 bushels, so with $10 to $12 wheat and $13 to $14 beans, it was a pretty good deal, so I got excited,” he said.

Last year, the beans following wheat where frosted off during the first week of October.

“Those beans did 9 bushels,” he lamented.

“I decided to try it again this year and I haven’t harvested the beans yet, but they have looked horrible all year,” he said. “Hopefully, they are more than 9 bushels, but I’m not terribly optimistic.”

As Gould wraps up his harvest for 2023 and starts thinking about weak spots in the operation and areas that need improvement, one thing that is definitely going to happen is replacing the overhead hopper for his grain system.

“That bin is bought and sitting on pallets in the shed,” Gould said.

“I will try to replace some machinery, but nothing dramatic,” he said. “It would be nice to have a new dryer, but that’s a want, not a need.”

One serious machinery change Gould is considering is moving from a 16-row corn head and 32-row corn planter to a 12-row system.

“I bought the 32-row planter to increase planting capacity and I thought the bean planter could help finish corn if I need to, but I get done planting corn first and then I help finish planting beans with the corn planter,” Gould said.

“That probably won’t happen next year because I will have to change the corn head, planter and sidedress bar,” he said.

“I’m thinking about storage, too, because yields keep going up so we need more storage even if the size of our farm remains stagnant, which it probably won’t.” Gould said.

“We will have moved from 70,000 to 80,000 bushels at harvest, so if we can save 20 to 30 cents with harvest basis and another 20 to 30 cents on carry, that’s 50 cents on those bushels,” he said. “Even at $3 per bushel, the storage can be paid for in six years, so it’s not that hard to talk myself into that.”

Although each growing season typically has something odd happen, overall, Gould said, 2023 is surprising for him.

“I cannot believe this crop is doing what it is based on what it endured through half of May and all of June,” Gould said.

“I think in the end, 2023 will be gratifying and a good year financially which after 2019 and 2020 it is good to have some solid years to get well,” he said. “It is not going to be a rock-star year, but a solid year to pay down some debt, get some machinery replaced and make financial progress.”

“It is also satisfying because our daughter, Vanessa, and her husband, Logan, are back and exploring their involvement in the operation,” he added. “I’m doing this because I enjoy it, but the reason I’m trying to grow is to carry on the family legacy and operate a viable business.”

The family is taking steps to provide an opportunity for the next generation to be involved in the operation.

“We are exploring what it looks like and we’ve started to sketch out a work chart,” Gould said. “I told Vanessa to figure out what is interesting to her and do what she is good at.”