FARMS Late harvest isn't easy

Rain and wind are damaging standing crops.
By NANCY TULLIS
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
LISBON -- Area farmers are battling the elements as they attempt to harvest remaining corn and soybean crops.
"There are just going to be some soybeans that just won't make it," said Ernie Oelker, Ohio State University Extension agent for Columbiana County. "Anything out there that hasn't matured yet isn't going to."
Oelker said rain and wind are damaging remaining standing corn and soybean crops. There have been snow flurries in some areas of the Mahoning Valley, and that tells farmers they need to harvest quickly, he said.
Planting delayed
Before recent rain the past two weeks, the harvest was already behind schedule because of rain earlier this year. Spring and summer rainfall and flooding delayed planting.
Oelker said farmers who use the no-till method of farming -- planting without plowing -- are having an easier time harvesting. In plowed fields, harvesting is next to impossible because there is mud and standing water. Heavy farm machinery, pickup trucks and other vehicles will sink quickly in plowed fields, he said.
"I was in a field the other day and about half of the corn crop was knocked down, and not all from wildlife," Oelker added. "We've had a lot of wind and in soft ground that will knock corn right over."
Oelker said sometimes farmers can salvage an immature soybean crop by chopping it and mixing it with corn silage, but the plants have to have a lot of leaves and most of the soybean plants still in the field already have dropped leaves.
Ideally, farmers leave corn and soybeans in the field until the plants dry out, harvesting them when the cornstalks are brown and soybean leaves have dropped, Oelker said.
They can then pick the soybeans and corn because the beans and shelled corn are dry.
With all the rainfall the past few months, however, the farmers haven't been able to harvest the crops, and the soybeans and corn have not dried well.
Extra work
If farmers can get to the soybean crop, they have often had to have them dried mechanically, which means an extra step in the harvesting process and an additional expense.
He said farmers need to harvest remaining crops as soon as possible because the longer the crops are in the field the more chance there is that the plants will begin to rot.
Area farmers grow corn and soybeans to process into livestock feed in various forms. Tons of soybeans are sold each year to agriculture cooperatives who then sell to soybean buyers nationwide and around the world, Oelker added.