This season’s fall weather is ideal for harvesting Iowa’s top crops. Most farmers in the northeast region of the state have been able to work in the fields for the last two to three weeks with no worries of rain. Walt Wessel, who farms west of Colesburg, says this harvest has been one of the best he’s ever seen.
“You can’t ask for a better fall,” Wessel says. “We finished beans a couple days ago and we’re thick into the corn harvest. Beans did really good. They went around 65 bushels. The corn has been anywhere from 160 to 200 depending on how good a drainage we had or how much tile we had.” Wessel says the corn he’s harvesting has a moisture content of 14 to 15-percent, the driest he’s seen since the droughts of 1988 and 1993.
Worthington farmer Dennis Schlueter says he’s taking great advantage of the dry weather. “I can’t remember when we had this long of a dry stretch where we could get a lot of things done without getting interrupted,” Schleuter says, “just trying to get all the dry weather stuff done, the bales made and stuff.”
Russ Reth, who farms southwest of Manchester, says he’s been busy harvesting corn and soybeans. “I’d say the beans did a little better than last year overall,” Reth says. “We had some exceptionally good yield checks, but when it’s all said and done, they’re just a little better than last year. And the corn, it’s all over the board. It depends if you’ve got a tiled field, how much manure you put on it.”
Bernard Monaghan, of Manchester, says he enjoys working with his grown sons during the harvest season.
This fall is a big change from last year, when farmers were kept out of their muddy fields for weeks in October and November due to heavy rains. Some had to leave their fields over the winter to be harvested early this spring.
By Janelle Tucker, KMCH, Manchester