Local Farmers Wrapping Up Fall Harvest

Area farmers are putting in long hours over the last couple of weeks in order to a wrap on the fall harvest, with most of the corn and the first crop of soybeans mostly finished.

Rain hampered the efforts in the early part of this week, but Scott Harre of Top Ag in Okawville says that a lot of the grain has been harvested over the last couple of weeks.

“There’s about ten or 15 percent of corn left to combine, and most of the full season soybeans are done,” Harre said. “I’d say that about 75 percent of the double crop soybeans still need to be harvested.”

Overall, Harre says that corn yields are similar to last year, though soybeans are down a bit after a strong year last year.

Last year’s soybean yield in Washington County 43.9 bushel per acre, with a total of 158,000 acres harvested. The statewide average was 54 bushels per acre.

Harre estimates that corn yields will be similar to last year, in which Washington County farmers averaged 167.4 bushels per acre with a total of 86,200 acres harvested. That was below the statewide average of 181 bushels an acre in 2019.

Grain prices are up from last year. Corn prices at Top Ag were $4.23 per bushel as of Monday compared with $3.84 in October of 2019. Soybeans are priced at $10.93 per bushel ($8.60 last year).

Statewide, farmers are well ahead of last year’s harvest schedule. On October 25 of last year, only 49 percent of corn and 64 percent of soybeans had been harvested, compared to 80 percent of corn and 90 percent of soybeans this year.

After a somewhat dry late summer, farmers in the county saw between 1.5 and two inches of rain last week. Just over an inch of rain fell in the six weeks prior.