2022 harvest underway!

Ryan Hiser

Everybody is getting ready to get started with harvest. We’ve got a lot of guys who did get stuff planted early and they are hitting it pretty hard, mostly shelling corn but there are some guys cutting beans in the area. Everything is moving right along. We’re pretty close to getting out to the field. We’re itching to be there just like everybody else, but stuff just isn’t quite ready yet. 

We’re planning on getting this little bit of corn started that we were able to plant on May 4. Then we can switch over to beans. Harvest is going to take a little bit, but as long as we catch some dry weather we should be in good shape. 

The forecast is looking pretty dry with cooler temperatures, nothing down below the mid- to lower 40s so that’s a good sign. Hopefully we don’t have to deal with the f-word, I don’t even want to say it. 

I wouldn’t say it is a majority of people running around here. I’d say it’s probably closer to maybe anywhere from 25% to 30% of the people running right now, or they are going to start this week. They were just able to get stuff out earlier or they’re bigger guys that are more spread out. It sounds like earlier-planted corn has gotten pretty dry.

My cousins started shelling corn Friday and I might go over there and help them out today. We’re just about ready to go, but we still have a couple things here to get ready to run. 

I have heard that some of these ears are still upturned and if we keep catching these late rains, there might be a possibility of some ear molds at this point. We really haven’t come across anything yet, though. Standability on some of this corn crop looks really good. Some of the beans I’ve noticed they’ve started falling over, but not anything major.

Joe Everett

The weather makes you feel like it’s time for harvest, and actually it was time for harvest. We got in the field Friday and we ran through yesterday, so we got a little bit done. Everything is going well so far. We just starting some beans and were really just excited to get in the field and get going. 

 In a normal year we would have been started by now, but we didn’t think we’d be starting this early with the rains we got late. We thought that would push our beans a little longer, but we did get some fields planted earlier this year in late April. Those beans are also a 2.8 variety so that really helped us get started.

We’re really happy so far. Those beans didn’t look great just because the rain we had early in the season. They’re pretty uneven, but they really have yielded well so far. We did get the rain through the season there, but as we move to different parts of the farm, we might not be so lucky.

We have about one more field of beans to run that are ready and then we might have to take a break. We’re going around and pulling some ears and seeing if we can run corn somewhere. We’d really like to run a field of corn just to get the dryer going and make sure everything is working properly. The corn moisture we’ve found so far is anywhere from 22% to 26%. We’re getting excited to try corn, but we’re not that excited yet.

We’ve worked hard this year and we’re ready to see the results of everything we did. In our direct area, there’s not too many people running but if you go into Miami County, there’s a lot more people out running. It was a little drier there. When I went over to Farm Science Review, I saw people running down in the bottoms over in Champaign County. That gives us a good marker that our harvest is right around the corner because they always get out before us. I thought turn out at Farm Science Review was good and I love talking everybody. It really just gets you back in the mode for harvest and it’s nice to get out and about again. 

Nathan Birkemeier

Things are looking really good. There will be a lot of guys in our area who will probably start cutting beans at the end of this week. There were a couple fields taken off last week. 

The corn looks really good. Everything is standing really nice. We’ve had some strong winds in the last couple weeks to really test the stalks. If the rain holds off for a little bit, I think it’ll really be a good year. Our crops went in a little bit later so we are probably 2 to 3 weeks out. We’ve got some green spots in the fields. We could hurry up and take a couple corners of the field here there but there’s really no point to jump into a field when you’ve got a lot of leaves on yet. We just need to be patient and wait until the whole field is ready.

Everything in our fields looks fairly healthy. Our beans got tall, but they didn’t get super tall so we’re not going to have any issues with beans going down. The corn looks really good. We have good plant health and plenty of moisture to give that crop everything that it needs.  We have been trying to hone in our fertilizer program in the last couple years. It really looks like we have a good handle on it to give that plant everything that it needs to get a good, strong stalk. I have heard about some standability issues in some corn. People are speculating that, after the 3 weeks of dry weather we had in June, the corn grew really fast and could have some weak joints in the stalks. I don’t know of anybody with any issues yet, but it’s just something to be aware of. So far everything looks really good, but it is always windy in Putnam County. If there is a day you can’t fly a kite, it is abnormal.

With the amount of rain we got, it wouldn’t surprise me if issues are starting to crop up with the ears still pointing up and husks starting to open. We could see moisture running down the cob and causing problems.

Kurt Wyler

Fall is here. We’ve been trying to wrap up making hay for the year. It was a little tricky but we’ve been able to get most of it done, even though the havn’t been many good hours in the day to be able to make dry hay. With the days getting shorter and the extremely foggy mornings we’ve been having, we were able to get most of it pulled off. 

We were also able to get all of our corn silage put away. We did have some breakdowns with the chopper but we were able to get it patched up and make it through. That’s one of the joys of running older equipment. We finished silage up on Monday.

The corn yield appraisal came back a little higher than we were expecting. The corn maybe wasn’t as tall as some years, but it was more consistent than usual. We didn’t have nearly as many low spots and we were surprised with that. The majority of it made between 20 to 25 tons the acre, even after all the wildlife damage we had. We were pretty pleased with that. It looks like as long as nothing goes wrong, the rest of the corn will run very well. Everything I’ve checked has been over 200 bushels. For our ground and conditions we’ve had this year, we’ll take that.

The beans are definitely turning. It looks like in about another week we should be able to start running those, but that is also the time for our county fair. Having livestock at the fair may hold us up from being able to run maybe quite as much as we want to.

There has not been very much stuff taken off around here. There’s been a little bit of ground in the river bottoms. With us being pushed back a little bit here this spring, everything is probably two weeks later than normal.

We’re not seeing anything yet in terms of diseases out there. We did have some corn get a little twisted up and on the ground from some wind we had. I’m sure there will be some corn sprouting on that so we’ll probably just leave that on the ground. Other than that, everything is looking good.