Harvest is well underway across southern Indiana, but lingering moisture and saturated soils make for a messy start for growers across the rest of the state.
In Dubois County, J.R. Roesner reports combines running steadily for the past two to three weeks, making solid progress following a stretch of intense late-summer heat.
“Weather has been very hot, but we’ve finally cooled down over the weekend here,” Roesner says. “Crops overall looking very good. Beans are yielding very well, corn’s also very strong. Looks like the forecast is going to be pretty good for us going forward here, so hope to make quite a bit more progress in the coming weeks.”
Further north in West Central Indiana, Ryan Rippy, who farms across Montgomery, Fountain, and Tippecanoe counties, sees a stark contrast compared to a year ago.
“Last year, we finished cutting beans on September 28th, and here we are on September 25th and we have cut just a little under 10% of our beans,” Rippy says. “It’s been really wet. I was thinking we probably would have done more this week when we looked at the forecast on Monday, but it’s just been overcast and misty and we haven’t been able to accomplish a lot bean-wise. Luckily, with the weather, we’ve been able to do quite a bit of corn. We kind of just been chipping away at the corn slowly, so we’re approaching a third done on corn right now.”
Eastward in Delaware County, Jenna Scott of Gaston notes combines in her area remain largely parked following a wet growing season.
“We have seen a few farmers out running some corn and cutting beans, but I would say overall, there’s very little progress made here in our area,” Scott says. “We’ll probably start in shelling some corn to run through the dryer, check and make sure that our grain setup is dialed in before we get too busy.”
That delayed timeline is nearly identical in Allen County, where Roger Hadley reports excessive rainfall throughout late summer holding back fieldwork.
“We had around 10.5 inches of rain from the 27th of July through August, another 5.5 inches of rain so far in September, so our soils are very soggy,” Hadley says. “We’re not able to even barely walk on them without getting mud on your shoes yet, let alone hold equipment. Most of our beans in this area is probably two-and-a-half, three weeks away. The corn is starting to dry, but with the cool temperatures we’re having, we’re nowhere close to starting harvest, both from the maturity standpoint of the corn and soybeans and also from the status of the ground.”
Growers can track weekly harvest progress and regional crop reports throughout the fall on Hoosier Ag Today.
