Corn and soybean harvest continues rapidly heading to the finish line across Michigan. Christian McGuire, Channel Seeds Technical Agronomist who covers northern Michigan says it is full speed ahead.
“Yes, soybean harvest is very close to being finished up and corn is not too far behind, and especially with the long-term forecast, 10-day forecast I see a really good window to make a lot of progress and get very close to finished up.”
The new update Monday had corn harvest 45 percent complete and soybeans at 80 percent. So, in the north corn is even further along.
“I would say so, yes,” he told MAT. “Like many areas, we’ve been so dry, so corn is coming off dry. There were no issues with compaction that are widespread. We’ve even seen some corn coming off as low as 15% right out of the field and beans all season long have been in that 10%, definitely under 13% all harvest long. So, harvest conditions are great, and people are hammering down, that’s for sure.”
McGuire says his area is experiencing what many other areas are, dry conditions that have led to the top end yields coming down.
“There were a lot of soybeans out there on those plants but they just did not fill out without the September rains, late August rains that they needed. Yeah they had lots of potential to be some bumper crops and I’m still not completely disappointed in what I’m seeing coming out of the field, but it’s just not record-breaking like we were kind of hoping we would have back in July.”
Some yields in beans have been in the 80’s, but that is not typical.
“If I had to average everything I’ve seen in my territory, we’re probably somewhere in the upper 50s to low 60s, but then I have also seen in very droughty areas that just did not get any of that late season rain, I’ve seen plenty of high 30s to low 40s. So, we are very variable. It’s all dependent on your late season moisture and there were areas, pockets that got plenty, and that’s where those eighties are coming from.”
Well-fed and early planted corn is a different story, according to McGuire. He said those crops finished the way they needed to and added some late-season test weight. In northern Michigan he is seeing plenty of 260-bushel fields.
Hear more in the full MAT and Channel Seeds growing season update:
