March 28, 2024

Harvest hardships: Following a stint of wet conditions, farmers race to clear fields

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As Will Cannon maneuvered his combine harvester through a vast cornfield on the outskirts of Prairie City and Monroe Tuesday, reaping and threshing rows of stalks, and filling his grain tank with golden kernels, his only worry was running into a swampy patch of mud.

Sitting in the cab of the green beast, Cannon steered through the long and wavy stretch of land and watched as his machine dug its fangs into the crop. He stopped just short at the end, pointing out the waterlogged surface around the corner of the hill. Not wanting to chance it, the Newton-born farmer spun his ride around and began harvesting other rows of the approximately 60-acre field.

A vehicle with that much weight plowing up and down and around the field could force the combine’s tires to sink deep into the soft and unsteady ground, a result from nearly a week’s worth of heavy rainfall which impeded many farmers’ harvest periods. Normally, Cannon said, farmers want to harvest based on the quality and readiness of the crops.

“For the last three or four weeks here we’ve been having to make our decisions on where do we think we can go and not get stuck,” he said. “It’s added two or three more layers of complications for making decisions during harvest. It’s been a big problem.”

According to the Oct. 14 Iowa Crop Progress & Condition report released by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Agricultural Statistics Service, “rain and early snow showers limited Iowa farmers to just 0.8 days suitable for fieldwork” a week earlier.

Of the very short time available, state farmers moved grain, monitored field conditions and harvested corn if weather permitted. The report said Iowa farmers “were only able to harvest two percent of their corn for grain crop during the week” and only one percent of soybean acres as of Oct. 14.

Since harvest began, 17 percent of Iowa’s corn has been collected and accumulated by farmers, which the report states is “four days ahead of last year but four days behind average.” Likewise, soybeans are 11 days behind schedule with about 19 percent harvested, “the smallest percentage of soybean crop harvested by Oct. 14 since records began,” the USDA report stated.

Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig released a statement on Monday regarding the statistics detailed in the report and predicted the state’s farmers are likely looking for those windows of opportunity to begin harvesting their crops before another bout of rainfall sweeps the state.

“With drier weather in the forecast, farmers will be putting in long hours to bring in the crop as quickly as possible when conditions allow,” Naig said in the release. “We again encourage everyone working on the farm or traveling on our rural roads to take the time needed to be safe during what can be a very busy and stressful time.”

Rainfall after effects

Farmers like Cannon jump at an opportunity for harvest after the county’s frequent rain forecasts the past few weeks. Of course, not all farmland is created equal. Some fields are wetter than others or have patches of soaked earth scattered throughout the unharvested land. Driving a combine uphill can be a struggle, and Cannon said he had even spun out a few times.

“That’s going to be standard operating procedure the rest of the year I’m afraid,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of difficulty this year already. We’re having to be really selective about which fields we go to … There are spots where I gotta pull out or drive around or go down the hill. That cuts our productivity.”

In an Iowa Preliminary Weather Summary by Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship’s State Climatologist Dr. Justin Glisan, the second week of October “brought up to four inches of above-average precipitation to Iowa.” Glisan also said Knoxville — Jasper County’s neighbor to the south in Marion County — “reported a 24-hour accumulation of 4.25 inches.”

As of Wednesday morning, Cannon said he expects he has 10 or 12 good days left until all his corn fields and soybean fields are harvested, weather permitting. Interestingly enough, the 60-acre-field he was working that day can typically be picked in a 24-hour period. But the mud, he said, has slowed him down significantly.

Finding slight shortcuts helps relieve or outright eliminate some of that downtime. For instance, while Cannon was harvesting with his combine, another farmer driving a tractor and hauling a grain cart steadily moved along the side of him and allowed the transfer of corn between the machine through its unloading auger — or what Cannon called “unload on the go.” Once full, the tractor and cart dispensed the kernels into a nearby semi to be shipped off later and stored.

High precipitation has not only affected fieldwork but the quality of the corn and soybeans farmers harvest. Although the USDA reported the conditions of both crops as “good to excellent,” Cannon is still uncertain. Most of the corn, he said, seems to be OK, but “you don’t have to look very hard to find ears that have mold issues or have bacteria growing on them or different things like that.”

And so the problem that arises, Cannon continued, is successfully storing the grain for a long time. All it takes is one or two kernels in the bin to inoculate the entire or a large portion of the supply with mold or harmful bacteria. Managing moisture control and aerating the grain bins, Cannon said, is going to be really important for farmers.

“The problem right now is crop prices are low, and a lot of farmers are trying to make up the difference by storing the grain and then selling it next spring, next summer, trying to get a better price,” he said. “So that’s going to be a challenge. Things are going to be a conflict with one another on that this year.”

Temperamental soybeans

As for soybeans, Cannon said this year he has farmed the best crop he ever had — “hands down, not even close.” Luckily for him and his crew, they were halfway done harvesting soybeans when it started raining. Since then, the quality of beans “has dropped down dramatically because of all the rain.” As a result, Cannon said he probably has one field where he lost half the yield.

“Because the soybeans fell out of the pods or they rotted in the pods and they’re not even going to harvest now,” he said. “Soybeans are going to be a massive problem.”

Although rules and thoughts vary from person to person, retired Prairie City farmer Gordon Wassenaar said soybeans are often prioritized when it comes to harvesting. The 82-year-old said 2018 was a good year for soybeans, which has garnered exceptional yields.

Wassenaar, who used to work full-time alongside Cannon (and sometimes still does), said a slightly belated rain can be good for soybeans. Soybeans like their water sometime later in the season, like August or early September. But the recent heavy rain, he said, might have damaged ripened and mature soybeans. Also, soybeans tend to become more difficult to harvest with the combine when the crop is wet or damp.

“You get another big rain you got some real problems,” Wassenaar said. “You gotta have dry weather to catch soybeans. Nature is a beast. Things have to be dry to run through the combine.”

Cannon agreed. Shortly before the torrential downpours hit Jasper County, the 38-year-old farmer said half a day was spent harvesting soybeans, something he is glad he did. For Cannon, he likes to harvest beans as quickly as he can. When the beans are ready, he wants the combines in the fields to collect the crop.

Uncertain weather conditions are nothing new for seasoned farmers. Wassenaar said the “first order of business” as a farmer is learning to adapt well to situations.

“Every year is a little bit different,” he said. “That’s where the management part comes in. How you handle adversity and how you deal with things like this that are out of the ordinary. There’s no one given answer on anything. You make those decisions day to day. That’s just part or normal operations.”

For Iowa farmers, dealing with wet conditions and high winds is just another part of the job.

All in a day’s work.

Contact Christopher Braunschweig at 641-792-3121 ext. 6560 or cbraunschweig@newtondailynews.com