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A lot of patience and a break from cool wet weather has gotten area farmers back into the fields this week working hard to harvest this year’s crop. Tracy Gathman, General Manager of Two Rivers Cooperative in Pella says they estimate around 80 to 85 percent of the soybeans are out of the fields, while 50 to 60 percent of the region’s corn crop appears to have been harvested. Gathman says the dryer weather has really helped bring down the moisture percentages in the soybeans.

“Probably in that mid-to-upper eleven-and-a-half to twelve range. Far better than the fifteen, sixteen percent [moisture level] stuff we were seeing a week ago,” says Gathman. “And that has lent to being able to move pretty rapidly toward possibly getting this bean crop put away.”

Corn, Gathman adds, has been coming across the scales with moisture levels in the low twenty percent range, which is better than the mid-to-upper twenties seen last week, but still a bit wetter than usual. As for the yields on this year’s corn crop, Gathman says numbers appear to be about average.

“I think we’re probably right in that five-year average kind of number,” says Gathman. “We’ve some stuff that’s been below that, we’ve some stuff that’s been above that, but if you really sat down and figured it out, I think we’re going to be right there in the middle of the range.”

Soybeans yields have also been strong, Gathman adds. He says hopes are for area farmers to make a lot of progress on soybeans by the end of this week and thinks the grain harvest this year should be a good one overall, despite testing the patience of area farmers.