Friday, January 09, 2009

Dawson County corn producers were scrambling Monday to get a few more acres combined before rain, sleet and snow arrived to bring yet another harvest delay. Across the state producers are struggling to get in a crop that is nearly three weeks behind normal.

The National Agriculture Statistics Service noted Monday that in Nebraska only 58 percent of the corn crop has been harvested compared with a five-year average of 85 percent.

"No one is jumping for joy, here or in other states," noted Lexington farmer Don Anthony.

Anthony just returned from Inver Grove Heights, Minn., headquarters of CHS, Inc., a diversified energy, grains and food company, where he serves as a Region 8 director on the CHS board and had four days to commiserate with fellow directors about the slow progress in harvesting the 2008 crop.

"The corn just isn't drying down this year," Anthony said. "One director from Iowa I talked to had nothing below the mid-20s for moisture."

Ideally grain elevators like to take corn at 15 percent moisture, a level that is usually easy to find in November, said Lonnie DeJonge, grains manager for Agri-Coop's Overton elevator. "We are averaging loads at 17-18 percent this year," he said.

Overton is fortunate to have a continuous flow dryer through which they can dry 50,000 bushels every 24 hours, said DeJonge. However, drying costs producers more money for a crop that already has faced sky-high input costs for fuel, fertilizer and irrigation. Add to that the fact that corn prices have dropped from a summer futures high of more than $7.50 a bushel to a harvest futures price of $3.70, and it's easy to see why producers have lost enthusiasm over what had been a promising crop year.

"It has been a frustrating crop," said Anthony, not only for Nebraska producers, but also across the country.

Weather has caused extensive delays and crop damage all over, he said.

A fellow CHS director from southeast Minnesota noted he had picked a half-section of corn in mile-long rows going one-way at 2.5 mph because of stalk damage.

Another director from Aberdeen, S.D., was only one-fourth done with his harvest and told Anthony a lot was not even going to get picked because of wind and snow damage.

Still another director from northeast North Dakota got stuck in his driveway coming home from the CHS meeting because of 13 inches of snow.

Dawson County Extension Educator Bruce Treffer said he estimates only 40 percent of the county's corn crop is in and there are still pockets of soybeans out there as well.

In the county, and Nebraska as well, the soybean harvest is still only 96 percent complete.

"The winds last week put a lot of corn down, making it a lot slower going," Treffer said. "In addition, the late hard freeze this year is having an impact on the slow dry down producers are experiencing."

As producers move into mid-November they have to weigh carefully the pros and cons of leaving corn in the field in hopes that it will dry down naturally.

The Ohio State University Agronomics Team of Peter Thomison, Allen Geyer and Rich Minyo note that by early November, field dry down rates usually drop to 1/4 to ½ percent per day and by mid-November, probably 0 to ¼ percent per day.

By late November, drying rates will be negligible. Allowing corn to field dry below 20 percent at this late calendar date risks yield losses from stalk lodging, ear rots, and insect feeding damage.

The Ohio State team estimates the loss of one "normal" sized ear per 100 feet of row translates into a loss of more than one bushel per acre and an average harvest loss of 2 kernels per square foot is about 1 bushel per acre.

This year growers must be prepared for severe lodging problems in many fields that will slow harvest and contribute to yield losses. Within fields, significant variation in grain moisture may exist among plants that died prematurely and stalk and root lodged severely.

The delay in corn harvest has also slowed the movement of cattle from summer pastures to winter cornstalks, noted Treffer.

"Usually producers like to move their cattle right from the pastures to the cornstalks, but that isn't always possible this year," he said. "Even though cornstalks may not be available, livestock producers need to be getting cattle of the pastures for safety and nutrition reasons."

He also cautioned producers to watch cattle carefully that are put on fields where a lot of corn has been down so they don't founder from eating too much corn.

The NASS released the monthly crop production report Monday and noted that the total U.S. corn production is forecast at 12 billion bushels, down slightly from the October forecast and eight percent below 2007.

Yields are expected to average 153.8 bushels per acre.

This will make the 2008 corn crop the second largest on record, behind last year.

Soybean production is forecast at 2.92 billion bushels, up nine percent from last year and on target to be the fourth largest production on record.

Yields are expected to average 39.3 bushels per acre, down 2.4 bushels from 2007.