
16 Oct Christy: Drier by the minute

Round Lake, Minnesota — Conditions are drier than I think I’ve ever seen for fall harvest this year. Corn is drying down at an increasing rate, and we’re seeing moisture as low as 11 percent. Weather today has temperatures hitting 82 degrees, a little uncommon for it being the 10th of October. There’s no rain in sight, but the forecast keeps telling us it’ll cool down. We have been in the 40s at night, but the warm days just won’t quit. It’s definitely time to get these crops out.

As quickly as harvest is moving this fall, we could very well see a really early ending season. Paul is thinking it’s possible to be done by Halloween. I can’t remember a season ending that early, but I am not complaining. It will be a welcome relief to have harvest wrapped up and equipment home and put away, all before the weather does decide to bring snow and other obstacles.

Patrick’s crew has now finished up with beans out in Roscoe. He saw some challenges with the weather conditions as wind gusts were as high as 60 miles per hour. With the dry conditions, it became too risky to combine with the fire warning level high. He has now switched over to corn, and we will hopefully be able to send another combine his way here this week. That should help him get finished soon.
Soybean crops were not fantastic this year, but with the challenging weather this summer, it is still a decent crop. I talked with our crop insurance agent the other day, and he said corn in the area is averaging between 180 and 220 bushels per acre. That is a good average for dryland corn.
Crews are finishing up our main customer in Round Lake. We still have more to do in this area, but it will be good to get completed there. Hartley ran into wet corn, so we’re moving machines around to continue picking until they are needed back there. I believe we will end up by the weekend having only one crew working in Hartley, and all others will be between Roscoe, South Dakota, and Elkton, South Dakota. This will mean a little easier time preparing meals for fewer people and shorter run distances to deliver them.

It’s a really big difference in perspective looking at how we felt harvest would go at the beginning, compared to how this season has played out. It just goes to show how quickly things can change, and how surprised you can be by those turns in events.
It’ll be interesting to see how these next couple of weeks go and see if the weather holds out to keep this pace. I’m hoping for a quick end so I can finally finish clearing out our camper and working toward regular life again.
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