COLUMBUS, Ohio — Dry weather aided in harvest this past week, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service.
Spectrum News 1 anchor Chuck Ringwalt talked with agriculture expert Andy Vance about the conditions and farmers' progress ahead of the winter season.
Ringwalt: “Andy, first, the farmers I drove past were harvesting corn. What other crops are being harvested right now?”
Vance: "Yeah. [The] main crops right now are corn and soybeans. And it's kind of bouncing back and forth between the two of them. Typically, a farmer might like to harvest soybeans first, get them off and then get the combine switched around and ready for corn. This year because of all the rains we had, particularly through that middle to late part of October, a lot of producers in the state decided, ‘Hey. We got to hold off on soybeans, switch to corn and get that off.’ We're also working as soon as you get soybeans out of the field and planting winter wheat, so that’s the other thing. If you're driving around the rural parts of the state, you might see planters rolling and getting some winter wheat into the field.”
Ringwalt: “Got it. Now the USDA's latest progress report says drier weather is helping push harvest along. Can you explain how that helped and where farmers are in the process?”
Vance: “Yeah. It's been a huge help because there'd been so much rain [that] progress had stalled for a couple of weeks there. Right now, we’re at about 65% of the corn crop [that] has been harvested in Ohio. That's actually a little bit faster than last year. Believe it or not; just slightly off the five-year average of 68%. Soybeans is where we're behind. It's 81% harvested as of this Monday when USDA put out the latest report. That's about nine points off the five-year average, so well behind both last year at 86% and then that five-year average of almost 89%. Winter wheat [at] 86% planted now, so that’s moving along, but again, that's almost 11 percentage points off where we were a year ago. Winter wheat planting is probably the thing that's most behind schedule compared to last year and the five-year average.”
Ringwalt: "And lastly, we've experienced a few frosts already. Has that affected progress at all?”
Vance: “You know, it's one of those things that probably hasn't affected progress as much. Sometimes that frost might help firm the ground up a little bit. One of the things farmers worry about when they've had this much rain is they don't want to tear up the field, leave a bunch of ruts, do any extra soil compaction so that when they go back into plant next year, they're not going into to a field they've made a mess of through trying to get the crop out of the field. Frost might help that a little bit, but by and large, it's more a question of crop moisture and how dry that crop is coming out of the field.”
The full USDA crop report can be found here.