News

Good corn harvest reports in central SD

The general manager of a grain elevator in central South Dakota says corn harvest is just getting started.

“There’s a lot of corn in this area and it’s going to be good.”

Tim Luken with Oahe Grain Corporation in Onida tells Brownfield…

“There are corn yields ranging from 140 to 180 bushels/acre and there’s some 200-bushel corn out there,” he says. “The moisture that’s been coming in for the corn is dry, from 13.5 to 14% moisture, but those yields haven’t been as high. We’ve also taken loads that have had moisture at 16 to 18% moisture.”

Luken says there will be storage piles on the ground because there’s not a place to put all the corn. He says it’s hard to manage space when producers aren’t giving indication as to what they’ll do with the crop. 

“It’s hard for us to know what we’ll ship later on. We do have a train coming at the end of November, but that won’t help when this elevator gets full.”

Luken says he’s optimistic farmers could be done with corn harvest by November 1.