Winter Weather Impacting Corn Harvest Completion
Northern areas of the state saw snow fall on Monday which is going to make the last half of the corn harvest even more challenging. The soybean harvest is nearing completion in NW Indiana, but a good deal of corn still remains in the field.
Carl Joern, with Pioneer, urges producers to harvest the corn, no matter what the moisture level, “While some of the early corn is down to 18%, the later planted corn is still about 23%; but from here on it is not going to get much dryer, and stalk integrity is a serious concern.”
The season’s first heavy snow fell across most of the northern part of the state on Monday. While running a combine in snow can be a challenge, Joern says it is the cold that is the bigger problem, “The below normal temperatures will keep the snow around, and we will see very little drying this week.”
In this strange weather year, the later you planted, the better the yields are turning out to be. Typically, early planted corn yields better. Joern says that this year it is the later planted corn that is yielding better, “The dry weather in July and August hurt the yields on the April planted crops.” He notes the late May and June planted crops are turning in some surprisingly good numbers. Joern says the same thing can be said for soybeans which benefited from late summer rains, “They say August rain makes soybeans ,but this year it was the September rains that really helped by soybeans.” He added most of the soybeans in NW Indiana were planted late and, thus, are showing good yields.