Mother Nature gave farmers a break from the fall harvest this week but most farmers will tell you it was a gift they would rather not have received.
Heavy rains that lasted for several days left up to six inches of rain in some areas of the county with standing water and fallen corn and bean stalks apparent in many fields throughout southeast Nebraska.
As of Friday morning, rainfall totals for October at the Beatrice Municipal Airport were listed at 6.23 inches for the month and 38.10 inches for the year. In comparison, the total amount of rainfall for October 2006 was 0.98 inches with the yearly total up to Oct. 19 listed as 31.88 inches.
As a result, farmers throughout the county are finding themselves several days if not weeks behind as they try to harvest corn, soybeans and milo while many are working to plant winter wheat as well.
Steve Freese, who farms corn and soybeans approximately one mile northwest of Plymouth, said that from Saturday to Thursday afternoon, his farm received 3.5 inches of rain.
Noting that his farm was affected severely by drought earlier in the year, he said his farm has received as much rain in the last week as it received all summer.
“We're getting plenty of moisture now,” Freese said.
Because of the rain, the last day he was able to harvest was Oct. 12, although rain and field conditions only allowed him to harvest for a short amount of time. He added that in the last two weeks, he has been able to harvest four days.
Freese said while he was able to get all of his soybeans harvested before the rains began, he still has about 150 acres of corn remaining in the field. Although Freese said harvesting the corn should only take a few days, it will be some time before his fields are dry enough for combining.
He added that as the rain continued to fall for hours and days this week, it served as an unpleasant reminder to him of how his crops were being damaged.
“Every day the fields remain wet means a decrease in the yield percentage and an increase in the losses to the crops,” Freese said. “There are more stalks going down all the time.”
On Tim Graff's farm, two miles west of Beatrice on Nebraska Highway 4, several of the rows in the corn and soybean fields have standing water left behind from the four inches of rain that fell in the past week.
Graff said while the rain has given him an opportunity to catch up on his photography business, which he does along with farming, he is still anxious about the state of the nearly 200 acres of corn and 500 acres of soybeans that still need to be picked.
Barring any further rain delays, Graff said his soybeans should take a week to complete while his corn can likely be harvested in two to three days. Until the fields dry, however, Graff said he can do little but hope the harvest can be completed before freezing temperatures make things even more difficult.
“I am nervous about it,” Graff said. “This year has really presented farmers with a different set of challenges. All we can really do is just hope for the best and be patient.”
Paul Hay, Gage County Extension Educator, said on average, the rains have put farmers about two weeks behind schedule on the fall harvest. While most fields in Southeast Nebraska are picked by early November, Hay said many farmers will likely still be running their combines after Thanksgiving this year.
Hay said thus far, the crop yields from the 2007 harvest have been average, and he said the crops should be able to recover as long as no other long-term weather delays occur.
However, he has heard reports of soybean pods starting to shatter as standing water, combined with cold, moist air, have resulted in fungi and bacteria growing on corn, soybeans and milo.
“The normal bacteria that always works to break the corn stalks down is already starting to work as farmers have left their fields in recent days,” Hay said.
“This is a concern as corn ears are falling off the stalks before they ever reach the combine, bean stalks are dropping down and stalks are rotting in the fields.”
As farmers are unwilling and often unable to get to their fields to harvest grain because of the wet conditions, activity at local grain elevators has been noticeably light.
At the Farmers Cooperative in Adams, branch manager Dailan Meints said while the elevator has still been receiving some shipments, he has also spent the past week removing grain from the storage bins at the elevator in order to continue regular shipments.
“The grain trucks and the combines can't get into the fields to get the grain because the fields are so muddy,” Meints said.
Meints also said agronomy workers at the elevator, who would normally be applying anhydrous ammonia to fields in preparation for spring planting, have been asked to help maintain equipment at the elevator because of their temporary inability to work in area fields.
“Right now, they are all helping us,” Meints said. “We're just waiting for everything to dry out.”