Harvest Started

Todd Easton Coles County August 26 2011: Harvest is here already in Coles County and much earlier than most would have liked in the sense that the corn crop had to prematurely die off to achieve this. A small handful of producers are getting started on their April planted corn and finding it in the low 20’s for moisture and in the 160’s from the yield standpoint. The elevator said that grain quality was surprisingly good but test weights were low as expected. Hand sampling in the May planted corn fields has been finding them in the low 30’s which means they could be harvested next week if the farmers want to burn some propane to dry it out. Most of the corn crop could be out of the fields before soybeans ripen enough for harvesting. Currently bean fields are still dark green and hanging in there as one chance of rain after another misses them. A good shower on the bean crop would probably improve the final yield at this point but that may not be the case much longer. As we start in on the harvest please remember to keep the safety of yourself and everyone else your number one priority!