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Yields exceed expectations, create challenges for Wisconsin farmer

A Wisconsin farmer says excellent yields have some farmers struggling to find enough grain storage.

Andy Bensend farms between Dallas and Prairie Farm and tells Brownfield combines are rolling now.  “Moistures are a little bit higher than we’d like to see for this time of the year but we’re basically in the low 20s. Yields are running between 170 and 230. We’ve probably got close to a 200 average.”

Bensend is very pleased since his ten-year average bushels-per-acre is 160, but with great yields comes a challenge… where to put all of that corn. “The bins are all full, so we have to haul dry corn to another spot in order to finish and that’s pretty much the theme in our whole area. All of the co-ops and the commercial people are all full. It’s a game right now.”

Bensend says a lot of the dry corn is getting ground for feed to help open up storage space. “The plant keeps grinding everyday. The turkeys have got to eat everyday. The cows have got to eat everyday, so it’s a temporary problem but it is what it is.”

He says there are regions south of him that have the storage space and demand. “That’s what they made railroad tracks for.”

Bensend says his basis is wider right now because of the need to move more corn out of his area.