The weather has not been kind to local farmers, between Friday’s wet weather, the dropping temperatures and possible snow this weekend, farmers are being left at home and not in the fields. However, they’re not the only ones feeling the impact of the late harvest.
“It’s pretty dead,” said Andy Van Dyck, an operations manager at CHS Larsen Cooperative. “We're just moving some grain around getting things ready for when we're busier.”
Larsen Coop. is a local grain elevator in Black Creek who also has to just sit and wait for crops to be brought in.
“Our numbers for the year will be way down,” he said. “We're anticipating 50 percent less grain this year than we've had in the past; that might be optimistic too yet.”
The latest numbers from the USDA show there will be about 9 bushels less of corn per acre, that’s about 500 pounds of corn per acre.
“Last year for corn silage, we were already about 86 percent of the way done compared to only about 20 percent that is completed at this point,” said Liz Binversie.
Binversie works as an agriculture educator for Extension Brown County; and she’s no stranger to these challenging times for the industry. While harvesting is about three weeks behind, she has a very important reminder for drivers.
“Know our farmers are just as stressed and as worried to get to where they need to go and for everyone to stay safe on the roads,” she said.
Much of the corn in our area is used to help feed cattle, but it’s also used to feed people or some of its even turned into ethanol. We can only hope that our current weather won't stick around for too long, until we can get everything off the fields.
