With the federal government shutdown, we didn’t get an updated Harvest Progress Report from USDA this week, but Channel Seed Technical Agronomist Christian McGuire says that harvest progress near the Lansing area is coming along at a much farther pace for soybeans.
“I would say we are well ahead of average harvest progress, especially for soybeans in my territory. I feel like there’s more soybeans off than any year in the past five years,” according to McGuire. “As far as corn goes, silage is about wrapped up and a lot of high-moisture corn is coming off, but there’s no true grain corn coming off to my knowledge at this point yet.”
He says the biggest factor impacting soybean yields in his area has been the late-summer drought stress.
“I think soybeans are probably average to below average because the drought stress really hit them. They needed some late-season rains to fill up at the top, and we just didn’t get that across most of the territory, so we’re pretty average on soybeans,” he says.
“I expect corn to be on the higher end of average with yields looking pretty good depending on what averages in your area, but corn hasn’t been nearly as affected by the drought as the soybeans have been,” he says.
Was there much in the way of disease pressure affecting crops near Lansing?
“There were patches in soybeans that still got enough moisture to have some White Mold,” says McGuire. “For corn, Tar Spot was certainly out there, but I don’t feel like it affected corn because it ran out of gas just like the corn did with the drought stress, so I don’t feel like that was as much of an issue this year.”
McGuire offers some advice to Michigan farmers during this harvest season.
“We did get a couple of good rains here just this week to wet some things down for us, but just make sure those combines are greased up to try to mitigate any fire risk because we’re going to dry right back out, and we just want to make sure we have a safe fall here for everybody. So, just take your time since we’re well ahead of what we typically are, and things will move ahead smoothly.”
CLICK BELOW to hear the full Channel Seed Harvest Update with Christian McGuire.
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