Northeast Ohio Agronomic Crop Report

The Harvest took a giant leap forward toward completion over the last 10 days. Here is the progress report as of November 14th.

Corn: is 40% complete with yields ranging from fair to excellent. It appears that the average yield will be around 140 to 150 bushels per acre with moistures running a percent one side or another of 20 % moisture. That is an average and there has been a lot of corn, especially early planted corn near the 180 to 200 bu. per acre. It appears that the late planting date and somewhat adverse weather did not affect yields. The main contributing factors in the producers favor was the extremely warm weather and abundant moisture that accelerated growth despite the late start. We recorded over 2800 growing degree days at the office in Burton this year. This matched the amount recorded in the bumper crop year of 2010.

Soybeans: are 80 % harvested with good to excellent yields. Average yields are in the 40- 50 bushel per acre area for most producers. There were however, some yields that topped 60 bushels and others that were closer to 30 depending on drainage and soil conditions. Once again abundant sunshine and adequate moisture especially in August played a major role in contributing to good yields. Harvest moisture levels were excellent over the last 10 days, with moistures below 13 %. Test weights ran at or near 60 pounds per bushel. The biggest problem was wet ground at harvest time with many fields being rutted up.

Wheat: Very little wheat was planted in October. Some may be planted early in November as the ground in now drier than it was during the traditional time to plant wheat. Probably less than 20% of the intended will get in.

Forages: You know it is wet when the Amish farmers cannot get enough traction to turn their ground driven binders and it takes three horses to pull in a wagon load of corn stalks to the cutter box. As for the Yankee farmers it was a tough go with many filed being totally rutted up in the process. Several local dairymen received citations for leaving to much mud on the roads. The harvest was late and the quality was poor, a tough year to harvest corn silage all around.


Dealing With Compaction:
One of the biggest concerns after harvest is how to deal with all of the rutted and compacted fields that have been left behind. A few things to consider are that once the damage is done it will take time to repair. If it is possible try to use a deep ripper this fall to take out the compacted areas with a minimum of surface disturbance. The newer style deep rippers do an excellent job of tilling deep while leaving the surface residue intact. What will not work is a disk or coulter chisel plow. Discs simply level the top and do nothing for compaction and bury surface residue. This exposes the surface to erosion. Coulter chisels take out some of top compaction but will not solve the problem lower in the profile on deeply rutted fields. If field conditions are poor and fall ripping is not possible you may have to consider taking the time to run a ripper through in the spring before you prepare your seed bed. Soil needs to be somewhat dry to fracture properly. The hard cold facts are that compacted soils are becoming more and more of problem every time we have a wet fall. Our equipment is so big and heavy that it is almost unavoidable.

Here are some tips that may help in the future. Try to set up fields so that once you load out you are running in the same tracks. The tracks that are compacted are just that compacted Try to avoid running randomly across the field and increasing the compacted area. This makes dealing with these areas a lot easier. Keep trucks off the field, vehicles with road tires compact more than field tires. Running flotation tires or duals with low inflation will compact less than highly inflated tires. If fields are deeply rutted plan a rotation that will allow for the planting of a cover crop like Tillage Radish that has deep tap root that reaches down and breaks up compaction. Anytime you increase your organic matter in soil you tend to make your soil more resilient to compaction. No-tillers have learned that they can increase their organic matter and minimize compaction with the use of long term no-till rotations and the use of cover crops. If you are interested in learning more about cover crops plan on attending the Cover Crops Workshop on February 6, 2012 in Willamsfield, Ashtabula County.