Harvest season is wrapping up in Dallas County.

Dallas County ISU Extension Field Agronomist Meaghan Anderson says harvest season got underway sooner than compared to other years as she believes it was mostly due to the very hot temperatures in August and September that led to corn and soybeans drying down quicker and pushing the maturity rate faster to completion. She talks about an area of concern that also came along due to the dry conditions.

“We did have a number of problems, I think, in Central Iowa in general, with fires unfortunately because we were really pretty dry through the majority of harvest. And that’s something that I think is maybe worth revisiting as we approach harvest season next year, how we might go about some prevention for those kinds of harvest issues.” 

Anderson points out yields for corn and soybeans are average to above average, with some farmers saying they had the best yields they’ve ever had. Anderson gives her reaction to those types of comments coming out of a third consecutive year of drought.

“It’s pretty surprising to me right? I mean eventually the lack of rainfall is going to become a problem. But so far I think it’s shown us really here on the soil types that we are farming that we have really good water holding capacity. We have been able to make up some ground over the winter that has given us the opportunity to get away with maybe some less rainfall during the growing season. We’ve had timely rainfalls for the most part, and gotten the conditions that we needed when we needed them to.”      

Anderson was overall pleased with how smooth and quickly the harvest season was in Central Iowa.