It was a challenging growing season for many area farmers as the rainy spring delayed getting crops in the ground. Now it is harvest time and we are starting to get an idea of how much the spring rain impacted this year’s crop.

“I’ve seen some yield estimates and they seem to be pretty good, maybe a little bit on par with normal given the year this year,” explains James Wolff , the Ag & Natural Resources Educator for Purdue Extension, “There is some delay in some soybeans that haven’t matured very well with the late planting, but it’s still not too far behind normal. Corn is a little bit further behind with the maturing dates, so a couple of farmers are just now starting to get their corn out, moisture is a little bit high so it may take a while to get the corn out of the fields.”

There were some hot and dry periods during the summer that helped make up for the late planting, but it wasn’t quite enough to keep from having a slight delay in getting crops out of the ground. Wolff says typically soybeans are harvested around the last week of September and early October. Corn on the other hand usually starts to be harvested around the middle of October and in full swing by the later part of the month.

The late planting, coupled with the recent rain and moisture in the area has kept some soybeans and mainly corn from being ready to be harvested.

“With corn so far the moisture is still a little high, normally we are harvesting pretty well by late October. So we would like to see that moisture come down to increase the quality. If it stays wet we might really start to see some of the fungal issues with it and issues getting that quality in the right spot once we get it harvested and in a bin,” says Wolff.

As we get deeper into the year some may be concerned about freezing but Wolff says that corn would benefit from a freeze as long as it is dry. The frigid temperatures would help remove moisture making the matured corn ready for harvest.

Farmers roughly have until the end of November to finish there harvest without any major impacts.

You can find more about agriculture in the area by visiting the Purdue Extension Office website here.