As harvest season looks to be wrapping up for some Greene County area farmers, more yields are becoming clearer.

Landus Cooperative Field Agronomist Dan Bjorklund says corn fields are about 30 percent away from being completely harvested and there are ranges of yields being reported because of one main disease that really impacted fields with southern rust. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio this disease was a game changer in that it bucked the typical trend of when farmers would apply fungicide, as well as virtually making aerial applications not as effective.

“Those lower leaves that were still inoculating, as soon as the fungicide that had protected that upper part of that plant wore off, in two to three weeks, it reinfected. So we sprayed in the middle of July, it was reinfected by the first week of August. In those situations people that sprayed a second time, probably got 250-260 (bushels per acre). People that didn’t do that second application, had just one, were down to 200 (bushels per acre), a lot of 200-220, very disappointed.”    

Bjorklund adds that farmers that didn’t spray fungicide were reporting 190 bushels per acre for the lower end of yields.

As for soybeans, Bjorklund believes that was a pleasant surprise, with yields between 70-80 bushels per acre. He details that there wasn’t as much of a threat for disease for soybeans like there was for corn, and the typical 40-50 percent of the flowers on the plant didn’t drop off like normal.

“The flowers just abort. You get a week in July where it gets really warm and it hasn’t rained for a while, and they just stress out. We didn’t have that this year. I think there were more flowers retained that turned into pods, and even though August wasn’t perfect, on the moisture front on the last half (of the month), we had enough going into it that some individuals were getting yields that were the best they’ve ever had.” 

Bjorklund says soybean fields are virtually harvested in Greene County, with only a few fields that remain. He anticipates that some farmers could be entirely done with harvest by the end of October, which is well ahead of the normal time frame or mid to late November.