Crop reports?

[Brittboy]

Looking for any up to date crop reports West or SW of Hutchinson ... or even Mankato Westward? It seems the corn is coming out but would love some percentage estimates if anyone has been in these areas the past few days. Thanks!!

[Eric Wettschreck]

I'm guessing here, but from what I've seen, westward near the Slayton/Fulda area the corn is about 60-70% out. Once again, that's a guess just from what I've seen while out and about. Hope it helps.

[Snag]

Here's an article on the harvest.

Slow-going corn harvest looks like it will wrap up around Thanksgiving

Written by: By Jonathan Eisenthal, special correspondent

11/03/2004

The weather models in mid-October offered a picture of a cool, dry autumn. They got the first part right. Although the cool part of the prediction is coming true, the dry part is not, due to yet another unpredictable El Nino-induced weather pattern. The end result for corn producers around the state will be a hurry up-and wait game of working around wet spots, stopping for heavier rains and waiting for fields to dry again.

This past week, Minnesota Agricultural Statistics Service reports an average of only 3.3 days in the past seven that were suitable for fieldwork. Still, many farmers managed to make serious progress, to bring the corn harvest to 45 percent complete. This compares to 95 percent last year (an exceptional year), and 84 percent for the five-year average. Minnesota farmers have brought in most of the soybean crop, with only seven percent left to harvest, according to the MASS estimate.

Minnesota isn't alone in experiencing a slow corn harvest. The USDA reports that, nationwide, as of October 31, only 65 percent of the corn crop had been harvested, compared to a five-year average of 80 percent done by this date. Besides Minnesota, the progress has been slow in Colorado (42 percent), Iowa (62 percent), Michigan (51 percent), South Dakota (33 percent), North Dakota (13 percent) and Wisconsin (41 percent). Only North Carolina and Tennessee have completed the corn harvest. Rain has been the cause of the slow down.

"With all the rain, we've got to work around the mud, and it is going slow," reported Andy Quinn, who farms in central Minnesota, near Litchfield. "I'm hearing there are still a lot of beans unharvested north of me, around Stearns County. It's going to be a while because there hasn't been any sunshine to dry it out."

The central tier of the state received considerable rain amounts over the course of the week. Willmar topped the state with 2.85 inches, while Olivia got 1.62 inches, St. Cloud got 1.95 inches and Canby got 2.05 inches. Many locations in the southeast corner of the state approached an inch of precipitation.

"The harvest has been delayed by the rain. It's going slow," said Rodney Moe, a farmer in Mower County in southeast Minnesota. "We had half-inch of rain last night, and most of the corn varieties are on the wet side, so between the time spent drying down the corn, and the muddy ground situation, it's looking like a slow grind from here on out. We have about a third left, so it will probably take another couple of weeks...it won't go fast, but that's alright, as long as it stays safe."

Quinn said he had been able to complete harvesting soybeans and the corn was about one-third done on Monday. He expects to finish the corn around Thanksgiving.

Reports from around the state indicate that the corn crop in general is in top condition, but also that it has higher moisture content than in the average year. This week, MASS increased the percentage of the corn crop to be considered "good-to-excellent," raising the number to 69 percent, up from last week's observation of 63 percent "good-to-excellent."