Corn harvest ahead of schedule in 2020 Matt Gade / Republic
A combine makes it way through a row of corn before turning around to start another pass while harvesting a field on Friday, Oct. 2 northeast of Emery.
By Erik Kaufman Mitchell Republic
YIELDS, ACREAGE FORECAST TO BE UP FROM 2019
Collin Waltner easily picked the biggest difference between his corn harvest this year compared to the same time last year. “We actually have the combine turned on,” Waltner said. The farmer, who works land near Freeman, is not alone. The 2020 corn harvest is underway throughout South Dakota and across the country, and producers large and small can be seen toiling away in the fields as they work to bring in the crop they sowed in the spring. 2020 harvest much better for Bridgewater farmer than in 2019 It’s a considerably different scene from late September and early October of 2019, when farmers were dealing with a season that had seen record-setting rainfall and moisture throughout the state,
drowning out low spots and creating enough of a mess that some producers were never able to get into the field to harvest. Erik Gerlach, state statistician with the United States Agricultural Statistics Service in Sioux Falls, said the latest numbers from the USDA indicate that farmers are indeed ahead of the pace for last year, even if work on corn is just getting underway. “Right now (corn) harvest progress on our last progress report was at 10%. That’s ahead of the 5% average and certainly better than it was last year at 0%,” Gerlach said. Farmers are taking advantage of the relatively warm and dry conditions that were so lacking in 2019. Without flooded roads blocking the pathway to fields and the fields themselves dry and navigable for heavy equipment, the harvest season of 2020 is shaping up to be a cakewalk compared to the process farmers had to undergo last year. “It’s glorious,” said Waltner, who had just wrapped up his soybean harvest and begun bringing in his corn at the start of October. “Harvest is going really fast. The yields are not a bumper crop, but I’m happy with them.”
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