Unforgettable harvest

Recent crop progress reports from the United States Department of Agriculture foresee an end to one hell of a challenging harvest season for Iowa farmers.

“It was one that we’ll always remember, but one that we kind of want to forget,” Ross Wasson, a 29-year-old farmer from rural Colfax, said.

Wasson, like nearly everyone else in Jasper County, was about two weeks behind schedule compared to past years’ harvests. Most field work started after the second week in October this year, according to data in the USDA progress report. Comparatively, most farmers in 2018 or across the five-year average had begun harvesting by mid-September.

In October, Monroe farmer Charles Birkenholtz told Newton Daily News just about everybody working in the fields was running behind. Corn wasn’t maturing like it used to, which made the season feel off-balanced. “I’ve been doing this all my life,” he said, “and I’ve never really combined this late before.”

Now, reports show about 95 percent of the corn has been harvested across the state thus far, which means most people have completed their crop operations at this point. This is good news for farmers, who have been at the mercy of inclement weather patterns delaying schedules for both planting and harvesting this past year — among other struggles.

Between the snow and the mud and the rain, Wasson said this season was “not a lot of fun” and one of the most challenging he has faced since he began farming in 2013. Spring saw heavy and consistent rainfall, which interfered with planting in late May and early June. Some areas got so flooded farmers were forced to replant.

“We were out of the fields for 15 days and couldn’t get in the fields until June, and that’s fairly late for us — we’re usually done planting by May 15,” Wasson said, noting the spring weather would later affect harvest cycles in the coming months. “So with the late planting it pushed everything back in the fall as far as maturity on the corn and the beans.”

Beans weren’t drying out as quickly as farmers would have hoped. Corn was the same way. This requires extra measures for drying the grain, which consumes even more time. To make matters worse, a statewide shortage of liquid propane — used by farmers to dry their grain — threatened to slow down harvest practices even further, and become more expensive.

The Iowa Farm Bureau Federation (IFBF) reported the demand for propane had risen considerably by late fall, suggesting that a combination of “colder than average temperatures” and “slow harvests in Iowa’s corn fields” may have caused the shortage. This was a problem.

“Colder temperatures and the need to dry down a larger share of the corn crop that was planted later in this year, on average, across Iowa and the Midwest could force a greater relative shortage of propane supplies and continue to support higher prices,” IFBF said in November report.

Drying grain inevitably became more of a challenge. There weren't enough hot or windy days to dry the crops naturally, so farmers relied heavily on their drying systems. Storing wet grain is out of the question, of course, Wasson said. Grain will rot if not dried properly, and it will cost farmers even more money.

Troy Wesselink, who farms just north of Newton, tried to maintain a positive attitude despite the unforgiving working conditions. Difficulties were plentiful, but he dealt with as best he could be. Wesselink acknowledged the season was awfully demanding, but the quality of crops, he said, was still rather good, all things considered.

“You battle through it,” the 47-year-old farmer said. “I guess it could always be worse. You know if you had a bad crop in bad conditions then it’s really bad … For as late as it was and the conditions of the soil that we put ‘em in, our yields were probably better than we expected.”

Some of the fields he had to plant were pretty wet. Conversely, if the weather had remained too hot and dry, those fields probably would have crusted over; the likelihood of any crop maturing would be low. Wesselink was pleased with the quality of his crop, especially since he was planting soy beans in June. That seldom happens, he said.

Farming since 1999, Wesselink said he spent more money buying propane this year than in the past. Moisture levels were too high. Wesselink had finished his acres just two days before fields would be dusted with a sprinkling of snow. However, Wesselink does remember harvesting and hauling grain during very cold forecasts.

“That just isn’t fun … But we got by with minimal breakdowns. We had some other problems,” he said, noting that he thinks the grain elevators and co-ops were feeling pressure from this past season. “With all the wet corn I had to go to a different elevator than I normally do because they can dry the grain faster.”

Like Wesselink, Wasson completed his last field near the end of November, before Thanksgiving. Harvest was a headache, but the farmer said it is a good feeling knowing that it’s done and that he can now look forward to the next season.

“And hope that it’s better,” Wasson said.