Rain Delays Harvest Progress Across Much of Ohio

Derek Niese – Putnam County

Things are going well here, other than we could use a little less rain right now. We’ve been fighting mud while harvesting tomatoes, and at the moment we’re not harvesting because of the rain. Up until now it had been fairly dry, and tomato harvest has been going decently. Yield-wise, tomatoes are really not much different from last year, which is somewhat surprising considering we’ve had more rain this season.

Across the way, corn and soybeans are all turning, and I’m seeing some late tar spot moving into a lot of corn fields. Most of the fields I’ve looked at have some presence of it. I think it’s late enough in the game that many fields won’t see much impact, but there are some earlier fields where it will probably hurt yields a little bit.

As for our operation, we won’t start harvesting corn or soybeans until tomatoes are finished. Right now, I’m figuring we’re about four more weeks away from getting into those crops.

Greg Ramsey – Ross County

The crops are continuing to advance, but it seems like the pace has slowed some. The last time we talked, it sure seemed like we were going to be in harvest really soon. We’re still seeing soybeans with a little green in them; they’re just not quite ready yet. You can find a field or two here and there where folks have started harvesting, but it doesn’t seem like everybody is going. I had figured maybe we would get started next week, but we picked up six-tenths of an inch of rain yesterday, and that will probably slow everything down a bit.

As far as disease and pest pressure, I haven’t seen anything significant. Things are pretty well turned. In our fields, the earlier soybean varieties have probably dropped about 90% of their leaves and are looking pretty close. If we keep getting rain, that’s another concern going forward. I’m really just hoping we don’t have a wet fall. Weather dependent, I would say we’ll start harvest next week and at least give some of our earlier fields a try to see where things are.

Matt Hartong – Summit County

We started cutting corn silage last week, but it was a little wet, so we put it off until this week. Up until yesterday, we had been going after it pretty hard. We ended up getting shut down by about an inch and a half of rain, but before that we had harvested roughly 15 to 20 acres of corn silage. Overall, it looks pretty good, so we’re pretty excited about what we’re seeing so far.

From a disease and pest standpoint, things have looked pretty good. We haven’t really seen any disease issues this year, which is something we’re thankful for. The biggest challenge for us is the usual deer and raccoon damage. We farm a lot of ground alongside tree lines, so you’ll notice a little more feeding damage around those areas than elsewhere in the field. As far as diseases go, though, we’ve been pretty fortunate, and there really haven’t been any significant issues for us.

Looking ahead to grain harvest, we don’t have a firm start date in mind yet. We do make some high-moisture shell corn, and that will probably be some of the first corn we harvest, maybe around the middle of October. A lot of that will depend on weather conditions and crop moisture. Right now, our main focus remains corn silage. If the weather cooperates, we should have the silage harvest wrapped up in about a week.

Melissa Clark – Miami County

It’s been really rainy here in Miami County over the last few days, and it looks like they’re calling for even more rain. At this point, we’re ready for harvest once the weather breaks. It’s really just a matter of time before we can get into the fields. We’ve had quite a few storms roll through recently, and in eastern Miami County there has been some corn blown down from heavy winds that farmers are having to deal with.

As far as harvest plans go, we’re hoping to start early next week if the weather allows. By the time of the next update, we should hopefully be talking about harvest progress instead of waiting on it to begin. Right now, though, field access remains the biggest challenge. The crops are ready, but we need the rain to shut off long enough for equipment to get rolling.

While we haven’t started harvesting yet, what I’ve been hearing from farmers around the area has been encouraging. Soybean yields are generally coming in average to above average, and I think the August rainfall helped push many fields toward the upper end of those expectations. For our operation, though, everything is essentially in a holding pattern.