March 28, 2024

Adair County farmers give updates from the field

The Adair County Free Press reached out this week to area farmers engaged in fall harvest activities to see how harvest is going here locally in the county.

Merritt Caviness

Rural Greenfield

Caviness reports that “so far, the beans are looking great.” He said that on their farm, they focused on earlier soybean planting. Couple that with timely rains their farms received and harsh storms they avoided, they report they have “excellent beans” aside from green stems slowing them down a little.

They have yet to pick corn, but they are eager to soon as it looks good to them. “Those earlly planted beans beat our corn to maturity, which is unusual for our operation,” Caviness said.

Ryan Laughery

Rural Fontanelle

Laughery stated that they have started picking corn and are drying it. They estimate they have about one-third of their corn harvested, yields are good and they are running approximately 17% to 22% on moisture.

Laughery planted later maturity beans but has heard other farmers saying beans are doing well across the area.

Brady Geidel

Rural Orient

Geidel reports that in their operation they are about 20% complete with picking corn and they had not harvested any beans yet as of Friday’s report.

Corn has run from 17% to 23% moisture and is running “record yields,” Geidel said. “We are very happy with corn and are excited to get into beans after hearing what other people have been getting for yields.”

They say they planned to start on beans after the rain late last week.

Greg Dudley

Rural Stuart

Dudley relayed to the newspaper Friday that in his operation, they were about 50% complete with the soybean harvest then with average moisture around 11% and an average yield of 70 bushels per acre.

“All we’ve done for corn is what we’ve chopped for silage,” he said. “That’s 30 acres and that got appraised at 239 bushels per acre.”

Statewide

On a statewide level, 87% of corn has reached maturity. Corn harvested for grain has reached 19% statewide. Moisture content of field corn being harvested for grain fell to 20%. Iowa’s corn condition rated 60% good to excellent, this week’s Crop and Conditions Report from the USDA read.

Soybeans dropping leaves or beyond reached 92%, producers harvested 20% of Iowa’s soybean crop last week with the total harvested reaching 40%. Soybean conditions were rated 64% good to excellent.

Caleb Nelson

Caleb Nelson

Caleb Nelson has served as News Editor of the Adair County Free Press and Fontanelle Observer since Oct. 2017. He and his wife Kilee live in Greenfield. In Greenfield and the greater Adair County area, he values the opportunity to tell peoples' stories, enjoys playing guitar, following all levels of sports, and being a part of his local church.