It’s perfect autumn weather this week, and for farmers that’s absolutely the best time to get the harvest rolling. But for many, it’s not quite time yet. Last year the second half of September was rolling like crazy before the wet October hit us. This year last spring’s late planting season, due to all the rain, pushed everything back. But Tom Fricke from the Vermilion County Farm Bureau says within the next few days, everyone should be able to start something.
AUDIO: Probably by the end of the week most everybody will have something they can probably get into. There’ll be an isolated case where the crops just aren’t ready yet. But, with the beautiful weather we’ve got scheduled for this week, we’ll see a lot of harvest activity taking place across Vermilion County.
When you look at the soybeans, some are completely brown, leafless, and ready; while others have leaves just starting to turn. That’s the kind of off and on planting season we had. And as Fricke points out, sometimes a final rain shower is the last push soybeans need.
AUDIO: Late rains will help soybeans more than it will corn. It will help fill out the pods, make the beans a little bigger within the pods, and that will help increase your overall yield.
Statewide, only two percent of soybeans had been harvested as of this week. Corn is behind schedule too, with only six percent statewide done. And it could be a lot more soybeans going first this year, as Fricke explains that when to pull the trigger on corn is probably the biggest decision farmers have to make this harvest season.
AUDIO: Fine line this year between how early you want to start on the corn, versus how much you want to pay in drying expenses. Especially with some of the other expenses that were astronomically increased this year; the fertilizer prices, fuel prices in the spring. Harvest is the biggest consumer of fuel on the farm. And so if you can leave the crop in the field an extra two or three days and help reduce that drying expense, some guys will probably tend to do that.
Some good news came this week that Illinois had made a major sale of corn and soybeans to Taiwan. Fricke says, it’s great that Illinois is in position to do big time exports.
AUDIO: Illinois is so perfectly positioned with our rail system; with our river barge system. It’s great for Illinois farmers to be able to continue to feed that market, and be able to support the exports.
The report earlier this week was that Illinois had sold about two billion dollars worth of soybeans to Taiwan, and 600 million dollars worth of corn; both over the next two years.
