Yield Sign

Those lights you're seeing in nearly every southern Minnesota field lately belong to the hard-working farmers, who are enjoying one of their best harvests in years.
"I'm hearing that this could be one of the best yields for beans and corn in a long time," said Rick Bot, who farms with his brother Ben northeast of Minneota. "I'm going to wait and see before I say anything, but it should be a very good year."
Many farmers were forced to prevent plant last season because of the wet spring, which limited yields significantly.
"We're going to have much better yields compared to the last couple of years when we were flooded out," said Gary Crowley, who farms with his son Cory one mile east and two miles south of Ghent. "When a farmer gets a good crop, it makes him feel good. You can't make a living with prevent planting."
The Crowleys competed harvesting their 500 acres of soybeans on Saturday and are now set to tackle their 1,200 acres of corn. Another son, Andy, has also been helping with the harvesting.
This year, however, farmers were able to plant early and, as a result, have been able to harvest earlier and reap bigger yields.
The Bots have 380 acres of beans and another 380 acres of corn. They began harvesting the beans this past week and had been averaging around 80 acres per day.
"We had a service breakdown that he had to take care of," said Bot. "If everything went fine and we had no breakdowns, we could get the beans done in five or six days. Some farmers with bigger combines than we have could do it in less time."The Bots said they will begin harvesting their corn once the beans are harvested.
Timely weather has also played a factor in the harvest this season.
"We missed the rain around here that others got last week," Bot said. "So now we've been able to get in the fields earlier."
Bot also said that the blustery day on Sunday benefitted his bean harvest.
"The wind keeps the dew off the beans so we can harvest late at night," he explained. "The sickle doesn't cut right if the beans have dew on them. And August has been drier than normal lately, too, so that helps."
Crowley noted that had it not been dry in late July and early August, the bean yields would be even better.
"It's still going to be above average," he said. "But if we would have had some rain then when the seeds are developing in the pods, the yields would have had better yields. But I think all farmers are pretty satisfied with yields this year."
Beans are expected to yield 55-plus bushels per acre, while corn is expected to be 220-plus bushels per acre; both well above average. A good corn yield last year was 185-190.
"I remember when 35 was a very good yield for beans,” Bot noted. "And that wasn't that long ago. Farming has come a long way since then. It could be one of the top bean yields we ever had. And it very well could be one of the best corn yields, too. But like I said, I'm going to wait and see before I get too excited."
Sort of like not counting your chickens before they're hatched. Or in this case, not counting your peas and corn before they're in the bin.