With harvest now underway, reports of corn and soybean yields are varying depending on how early—or late—the crop was planted.
“As far as just the amount that we’ve harvested I think we’re probably half done with soybeans and got a little bit of the start on the corn,” says David Lawson, who farms near Shelbyville in Shelby County.
“We’ve seen decent yields out of corn and beans from what we’ve run, and have been pretty satisfied there.”
He tells Hoosier Ag Today the biggest impact on harvest had been the timeliness of when the crops were planted, since weather challenges last Spring created wet field conditions and delaying planting progress for many growers.
“I guess you could say we had two different planting dates. We had an earlier one that was in April. The second one came through the middle of May to around the end of May. From everything we planted early, those yields were above average for sure. Now, some of the later planted stuff is starting to show some stress from the dry weather, and we’re not surprised by that,” he says.
Lawson adds that just a little more rain before the end of harvest would help.
“More so than anything, a little extra rain would just help to keep the dust down and try to mitigate that field-fire situation,” says Lawson. “But, you look at the yields that were pretty good and you think, ‘If we would have gotten a little more rain, we probably could have had even better yields,’ but the long-and-short is, you’re going to run the crops that you have and go on to next year.”
USDA’s most recent Crop Progress and Harvest Report issued on Monday, Sept. 29 says that Indiana’s corn was 16 harvested and the state’s soybeans were 24 percent harvested. However, with the federal government shutdown beginning on Wednesday, Oct. 1, it is unlikely that USDA will release an updated report on Monday, Oct. 6.
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