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Corn growers struggling to finish harvest

As another winter storm bears down on the Midwest this week, some corn growers in Nebraska and the Dakotas are still trying to wrap up their 2009 corn harvests. 

Darrin Ihnen farms near Hurley in southeast South Dakota.  He says about 20 percent of his crop remains to be harvested. 

“The challenge now is just finding a place to go with it, because the ethanol plants are full yet and the corn is still carrying a fairly high moisture—in that 19 to 20 percent range—so you can’t just put it straight in the bins,” Ihnen says. “So it’s still a challenge—but at least we’ve got the bushels, so that makes it worthwhile.” 

Ihnen says the four to five inches of snow they received in early December has not been much of a problem. 

“We’ve got some blown-in edges of the fields we’re leaving, but it’s not bothering us,” he says.  “But it sounds like the weather may be changing for the worse later this week, so we’re going to make a big push here before Christmas to get out as much as we can before then.” 

Ihnen is president of the National Corn Growers Association.