WAPELLO, COUNTY, IOWA -- Farmers across the heartland have begun harvesting their fields.
KTVO went out and talked with some farmers regarding how their harvest looks.
Farmer Clark Yeager said after the spring planting season things were looking as though it would be a great year.
“We thought we had everything going great. We were done planting by the 22nd of April. Most of it went into pretty good conditions and we thought, ‘boy, lets just sit back and watch this baby grow.’ Well, little did we know it was going to rain as much as it did.”
The excessive rain has taken its toll on the fields and is greatly affecting the quantity of the harvest.
“Everybody is talking about we should have a bigger corn head this year or we don’t need our bins, what are we going to do with our bins because we wont have enough corn to fill them?’”
Some ears fall through the header because of stunted growth. Some acres didn’t produce as many stalks, some stalks didn’t produce as many ears. Overall production is down.
“Our corn, what we’re picked so far is only about 2/3 of what we expected to get out of it,” Yeager said.
On the bright side Yeager said the moisture in the corn is down which will help with drying costs.
Regarding the soybean crop, “The beans are the unknown right now, Yeager said. The soybeans, We’ve seen some sudden death in them.”
Yeager expects that crop to be better than the corn.
Yeager said he is harvesting his fields about a week later than normal. Another farmer KTVO met up with said he is getting into his about two weeks earlier. He said it was too early to tell how his fields will fare this year.
Please remember to drive safe and maintain a safe distance from farm equiptment on the roads.