Janel: Drying days wanted - All Aboard Harvest

02 Aug Janel: Drying days wanted

Posted at 07:17h in 2017, aawh, All Aboard, Crop Updates, harvest, High Plains Journal, HPH, Janel, John Deere, MacDon, Photos, wheat by Janel Schemper 6 Comments

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Pierre, South Dakota – We are slowly making progress. We have been here a couple of weeks now and for the most part have spent most of our time waiting on spring wheat to ripen. We have cut a few fields (some have been hailed on), and overall the wheat is yielding around 30 bushels per acre. The protein has been 17-20 percent, which is excellent. However, the wheat is light, weighing about 55 pounds or so. The wheat is standing good, and the conditions have been fair. What we really need are some good drying days, including lots of heat and wind. That would help our wheat harvesting progress a lot.

We have lots more spring wheat here to cut, and it looks like it will yield pretty well and more than what we’ve recently harvested. Hopefully, we’ll stay busy even though the 10-day forecast is cooler (70s and 80s) with some chances of scattered showers.

As of mid-July, it’s been reported that over 70 percent of South Dakota is in a drought. The corn is showing signs of drought and heat stress and is anywhere from a couple feet tall to 5-6 feet tall. For the most part, the soybeans are looking small, short and uneven. In this area, the rains we had recently have certainly helped and have made the row crops look better.