News

Harvest begins in the county

By Scott Wagar

08/26/2014

With harvest starting in Bottineau County, local ag producers are not seeing the crops they hoped to see when they planted their crops.

“Harvest has been moving slowly here,” said Jared Nelson, NDSU extension agent for Bottineau County.

“It seems like wheat harvest started a little later this year and for some farmers may run all the way to the end of September. Canola is being cut and harvested.”

CORN

“Soybeans and corn are probably still a little ways out,” Nelson added.

“Corn is once again going to be the big question mark. The corn in Bottineau County is still about 40 days out from black layer, which puts us around the middle of October for the corn to be fully matured.

“This would be great for harvesting at this time, but the corn will still be around 30 percent moisture,” he continued.

Nelson stated that the average moisture content for corn is 13-15 percent for harvest.

“There are going to have to be a few more hot sunny weeks to get the corn to move a little quicker for harvest,” he said.

WINTER WHEAT
 
At the present moment, the most difficult problem for farmers is winter wheat.

“The winter wheat that has been harvested seems to be

doing well for protein, moisture and yield,” Nelson said. “The issue being for winter wheat is the vomitoxin for the wheat and it being rejected at the elevators.

“This year has not been a very kind year for winter wheat. There has been large prevalence of scab in the wheat this year due to the wetness of the growing season,” he added.

“This has caused a fair amount of the wheat being brought into the elevator to be rejected because of the DON (vomitoxin) levels being too high in the winter wheat,” Nelson said. “It seems like every field has had some scab this year, some worse than others. Growers are going to have to decide what to do with their wheat if the vomitoxin level is too high.

“One decision growers may have to decide is whether to use it as livestock feed if the levels are acceptable or possibly clean the grain to reach the acceptable levels to sell the wheat,” Nelson said. “Typically the common practice to help reduce this is to mix it with the lot that does not have much incidence.”

MARKET PRICES

When it comes to market prices for crop, they do not seem to be doing any better than the crops ag producers are dealing with in their fields, but farmers do have some hope for better prices.

“The prices right now are not the greatest for the crops, but hopefully growers will see a little bit of a bounce back in the markets, especially for the corn market,” Nelson said.

HAYING
 
When it comes to the haying season, hay has held its own this summer.

“It has been fairly good overall this year, just a little slow to develop. The big issue growers had right away was getting to the areas they normally do, due to the wetness,” Nelson said.

“But, now with some free time before harvest, haying seems to be going fairly fast with a lot of bales being put up quickly.

“Some of the lower areas in growers’ hay fields may be a little difficult to get cut, but overall there should not be too much concern for a lack of hay in the county this year,” Nelson stated.

“Another positive for haying this year is the overall quality of the hay seems to be good. If growers are concerned that they may not have enough hay, and may need some more, they can always go to the NDSU Feedlist online to see who has hay around.”

Although crops have struggled this year, Nelson did state that harvest operation can improve if the weather cooperates.

“By the beginning of September we should start to see quite a bit of dust in the air and combines in the field taking crops off,” he said.

“As long as we dry out and avoid rain showers like this last big one harvest should run smoother and quicker than last year.”