It’s been a unique year to say the least for farmers and crop producers across Iowa.

Wet weather delayed planting season for most farmers, but then the growing season sped up the crop and even pushed it ahead of its typical time frame. Even harvest season was pushed ahead for some Greene County farmers, who started harvesting soybeans as early as September 15th. Local yields for soybeans range between the upper 50s to the upper 70s. Jefferson area farmer Mike Bravard estimates about 70-percent of soybeans have been harvested on his fields, while Rippey farmer Pete Bardole and Churdan farmer Tim Towers say they are about halfway done.

Like many other farmers, Bardole points out that they’ve barely started harvesting corn, and describes what his corn weight was testing at as this past weekend.

“We did pull the combine into one field of corn and it was testing at 15-percent on Saturday before it started raining. So I mean I don’t think there will be any dryers running at this point from what I’ve seen out in the cornfields now.”

Bravard adds that with all of the precipitation this week, one of the biggest challenges is getting the harvested crop from the combine to the loader trucks without any equipment getting stuck. Another challenge is also the crop’s standability as the harvest season progresses.