Published: November 04, 2009 10:05 am      

Latest harvest in years

Despite several days of sunshine, area farm fields are still muddy. But one area farmer said equipment more normally used in flooded rice fields further south is helping him clear his fields.

“My combine is outfitted with rice tires and four-wheel drive,” said John Kremer of rural Teutopolis. Kremer said the “rice tires” are designed to run through flooded rice fields in areas that grow rice, most notably Arkansas and Texas.

Kremer, who began harvesting corn Monday, said getting crops out of the fields isn’t the only problem stemming from a wet year.

“We’re having excellent yields (200 bushels per acre), but the moisture level is 22 percent,” he said.

While Kremer dries his corn in a bin on his farm, other farmers must take their crops to grain companies — where dryers have been running day and night in an effort to keep up.

“We can only store so much wet corn,” said Dale Huisinga, grain coordinator for Effingham-Clay Service Co. “We have one dryer that can handle 7,000 bushels per hour, but we might get 100,000 to 200,000 bushels a day.

“Some days, we’ve had to turn farmers away after about 3 in the afternoon.”

Renee McClain, transportation assistant at Effingham Equity, said she’s seen corn with a moisture content as much as 30 percent. She said wet corn presents a challenge to elevator operators.

“It’s hard to dry corn that wet down to the 15 percent we need,” McClain said, adding corn with moisture content above 15 percent cannot be effectively hauled long distances by rail.

“We should be OK, as long as we have the ability to dry through the night,” she said.

Planting was delayed because of wet spring conditions. Then, a cool summer hampered plant maturity. More recently, a rainy October hampered farmers’ ability to get into their fields.

Dennis Bowman of the University of Illinois Extension in Champaign said the lateness of this year’s harvest hasn’t be equaled for decades.

“This is the latest corn harvest we’ve had since 1967, and the latest soybean harvest we’ve had since 1941,” Bowman said. “It’s common to have a few fields that aren’t harvested in a timely manner. But this year, it’s everybody.

“The crop is really good, but it’s still in the field,” Bowman added.

On the bright side, Bowman said frost shouldn’t be an issue for farmers who won’t be able to get to all their fields by the first hard frost.

“At this point, the crop is basically mature, so frost won’t be much of a factor,” he said. “The problem we have is that our air hasn’t had the energy to pull moisture of the crop in the field, and elevators only have so much drying capacity.”

Elsewhere in the area, Ron Marshall of the Fayette County Farm Bureau said some farmers in his area are having to interrupt their harvest to clean mud out of equipment.

“The good news is that we have farmers in the field,” Marshall said.

In Clay County, Farm Bureau manager Keri Ulm said farmers in her area just began harvesting this past weekend.

“It’s still slow because everything is very, very wet,” Ulm said. “We still have a long way to go.

“We’re normally 70 to 80 percent done by Nov. 1,” Ulm added. “This year, we’ll still have people in the fields around Christmas.”

Bill Grimes can be reached at 217-347-7151 ext. 132 or bill.grimes@effinghamdailynews.com.