Indiana farmers are making swift headway on fall harvest, closing out soybean acres and pushing combines rapidly into corn as open weather windows hold across the state. That’s the case for many, but not everyone.
In Northeast Indiana’s Allen County along the Ohio state line, Roger Hadley reports finally getting into bean fields that had been delayed since spring.
“We were able to get in later Monday, found some beans dry enough to go—13.5 moisture we started at,” Hadley says. “We were able to harvest a good day Tuesday, and then got rained out overnight Tuesday night, and have not been able to get back in since. Many others have been going also this week, and some started last week—harvest progress is pretty fast compared to the week before, where it was probably less than 10%. The county is probably pushing 45% done, this area is probably pushing 30% harvested, maybe 35%, depending on whether you had late beans or early beans. So far, the bean yields we have found have been average to above average in the first field, the second field is right around average—just depending on where we got that rainfall in early June.”
Further south in Delaware County, Jenna Scott at Cox Farms Inc. in Gaston reports soybean harvest is officially in the books, with corn harvest already hitting the halfway mark thanks to favorable weather.
“Yields were average, nothing outstanding,” Scott says. “And we’ve moved on to corn. We’ve got 50% of our crop in, which again is due to the great weather we’ve had. We haven’t had to dry any of it thus far—it’s just been going straight into the bin or straight into the elevator, so that’s been nice to not have to dry it. Looking around the county, you see a lot of bean fields done, a lot of people moving on to corn as well. There are a few beans out there, but mainly due to late planting conditions—they just couldn’t quite get to it yet, and they weren’t ready.”
If the dry forecast holds as projected by Chief Meteorologist Ryan Martin, Scott expects they could wrap up their entire 2026 harvest run in the next week.
In West Central Indiana, Ryan Rippy reports soybean harvest on his fields across Fountain, Montgomery, and Tippecanoe counties have been finished for a couple of weeks. Operations there have pivoted fully to corn, though specialty varieties have presented challenges.
“We got done with our commercial corn at the beginning of the week and have moved on to our waxy corn,” Rippy says. “The waxy corn has been pretty disappointing. It doesn’t handle the stress quite as well as the regular traded and commercial hybrids, so it’s been a little bit below expectations. For the most part, it looks like most operations are in full swing on corn harvest. Beans are pretty well wrapped up. What’s left of beans, I’ve been hearing a lot of rumors and things of the terminals and the processors getting full of beans, and there’s been some guys here at the tail end of bean harvest in this area that have struggled to get rid of them.”
With harvest equipment and haulers running steadily on rural routes, Rippy reminds motorists and farmers alike to stay alert following an incident earlier in the week where his grain truck was rear-ended.
“There are lots of grain trucks entering and exiting the roads, there are a lot of slow-moving vehicles,” Rippy emphasizes. “Be aware and be careful.”
