From the Fields: Right back into it

We have not had rain and it’s been really pretty good harvest weather. On Oct. 9 and 10, it rained about two-tenths and that let everybody stop for a day and get caught up with maintenance and hauling some grain and that kind of stuff. Then everybody dove right back into it on Wednesday and Thursday. It’s been a really pretty remarkable harvest.

There’s enough moisture in the ground for wheat sowing. I took a trip to Mount Vernon, about an hour east of me, and there’s some wheat that is up, some has just been planted and some that has yet to be planted. I’ve completed my wheat planting for the year. It’s still dry, but the wheat went in great. There’s enough moisture now to get it all up. We could use another shower to finish off and hopefully we’ll get that soon. All in all, I would say everything is going good as far as wheat planting goes.

I am finished harvesting first-crop beans. We have a day or two of corn harvest to go and then that will be completed. Then we’ll be waiting for double-crop soybeans to ripen up. If the weather holds, everyone should be done by Halloween. I would say we are 75% to 80% complete on first-crop bean harvest. Corn harvest, our customers down along the river are done with corn. I’d put the corn harvest at 60% to 70% done. The big operators all have beans left to cut and corn left to harvest, but generally speaking we are 60% to 70% done with corn harvest and a little more than that on beans.