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Combines keep rolling in Wisconsin

Harvesting continues in Wisconsin.

Joe Amberg has farmland near Hillsdale that he rents to a neighbor, and says his combines are rolling. “Corn hasn’t been touched in this area yet but beans are getting worked on, yes.”

Amy Penterman and her husband Sander have a dairy farm near Thorp, and they have wrapped up corn silage, and most of her area is pushing to finish the soybean harvest before mid-week rains.  She says yields vary. “There’s some soybean fields that are down, but I think when we’re used to those high yields and then we get back down to those average yields, it feels like… well, it is a bigger loss, so I think that’s kind of where we’re sitting on most fields, but there are spotty losses out there.”

Penterman says a lot of dry corn for grain is starting to leave the fields and area farmers were fortunate to not have intense disease pressure. “So, there’s spots where the yield is down but overall, it’s a pretty decent crop out there.”

Prior to the government shutdown, USDA was predicting Wisconsin would have a record corn crop with yields around 185 bushels per acre and 53-bushel-per-acre soybeans, but it’s unclear if late season weather and disease pressure will have a big impact on yields.