Crop Watcher 11/06/09

Todd Easton Coles County November 6 2009: Overtime, It comes as no surprise to me that Farmweek has asked us to continue reporting for a few extra weeks its just one of many signs that this harvest has gone well into overtime. The good news that finally at this late point in the fall field operations are in full swing. Looking across the countryside this week it looks like every piece of fall season farm equipment in the county is out working as farmers and fertilizer suppliers are trying to get a long list of work done in a very short time. Soybean harvest appears to be in the last ten percent as many producers have worked down to their ponds and latest plantings. Soybeans seemed to have a very well defined trend of later planting being lower yielding. I couldn’t even venture a guess of what the final county bean average will be but I’m afraid it will be somewhat lower than our five year average. Corn on the other hand is doing surprisingly well as most fields I have been in so far are at or above average with the last two topping the 200 bushel mark even after shrink. As we get farther in it will be interesting to see what the June planted corn does hopefully it won’t show a significant lag like the beans but it might. As harvest moves along stay safe out there.