Indiana Wheat Harvest Underway
While most Hoosiers celebrated a holiday weekend, Indiana wheat farmers were busy harvesting this year’s crop. The Indiana harvest is running behind schedule; but, according to Steve Gauck with Beck’s, the crop is in good shape, “Harvest has been slow to start with the late warm up this spring, so we are a little bit behind.” Despite a harsh winter and wet conditions yields have been good, “Yields have been very good; better than expected and, in most cases, better than average.” He added the quality of the wheat has also been good with fewer cases of vomitoxin than expected.
The lateness of the wheat harvest is going to make double crop soybeans difficult in Northern Indiana, but Gauck says it will be a good year to get a second crop of soybeans in Southern Indiana, “I think we have a great opportunity for double crop soybeans this year. Not often to we get the chance to plant double crop soybeans into moist ground, but this year we have plenty of moisture in the soil and that will help the crop get up and off to a great start.” He said planting soybeans in early July will still be enough time to mature the crop before the first frost.
According to last week’s USDA update the Indiana winter wheat was 90% mature in the South, 58% in Central counties, and 23% in the North. Winter wheat harvested was 64% complete in the South, only 9% in Central counties, and still 0% for the North region. The Indiana wheat crop was rated as 65% good to excellent and 33% fair to poor with only 2% rated as very poor.
USDA crop briefs Monday afternoon will provide an update on wheat harvest progress in Southern Indiana.