Area ag community sizes up 2009 harvest
November 02, 2009 at 8:04 am
By KARLYN BYERS
Pictured left - Ashley Green harvests corn along Springdale Road recently. Green has really taken an interest in farming, according to Russell Conklin of BR&J Farms, and has proven to be a good employee.
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This year’s cool, wet fall has slowed the corn harvest, but the soybean harvest is more than 75 percent completed, said Union’s County’s Jon Rausch.
Rausch, who succeeded John Hixson as the county’s Extension Educator, Agriculture & Natural Resources, was asked his opinion this week about this year’s soybean harvest.
“We’re getting toward the tail end of the soybean harvest,” he said from a conference room at the Extension Office on Route 4.
But the past summer and this fall have not been conducive for optimum harvest conditions.
“(The corn) is not drying well,” he said.
Soybean yields have been in the upper 40s to mid-50s, he said, adding “I’m going to guess the county average is 40-something.”
Moisture content is hovering in the 13 percent range. Any drier than that, and the individual beans will shatter and pop “all over the place,” Rausch said.
Fall also is the time to plant wheat, which will over-winter and mature next summer. Rausch said there may be fewer acres planted than normal; again, because of the wet weather.
“I’ve talked to a few guys, and we may be off a few acres,” he said.
Rausch said he has heard “some rumblings around” that there are farmers experiencing mold in their corn because of the wet, cooler fall, but that seems to be more of a problem in other regions in the state.
York Township farmer Ken Gravatt said he, too, has heard of some producers experiencing corn rot, but, fortunately, he has not encountered any.
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