Wet, chilly October knocks harvest seriously off track

A cold, wet October has put Iowa's corn and soybean harvest about three weeks behind the five-year average, according to the Iowa Crops and Weather Report released Monday.

Only 12 percent of the corn crop and 47 percent of the soybean crop had been harvested as of Monday, according to the report, which placed the progress, respectively, at 19 and 21 days behind the recent five-year average.

“Farmers are as nervous now as I've ever seen them. All kinds of dark scenarios are playing through their minds,” said Bill Northey, Iowa secretary of agriculture and land stewardship and a farmer himself.

“It's hard to relax when you have so much work staring you in the face,” said Tom Griffin, a Buchanan County farmer who has harvested about half his soybeans and hardly any of his corn.

Griffin, a farmer for 48 years, said he can't remember a fall as wet, cool and inhospitable to harvest as this one.

Neither can Glenn Schanbacher, a Benton County farmer for the past 31 years.

“It's pretty nerve-racking,” watching conditions deteriorate while the clock keeps ticking, Schanbacher said.

As of Monday, this month was the third-coolest and sixth-wettest October in the 137 years the state has been keeping records, said State Climatologist Harry Hillaker.

With another wet, windy storm expected to arrive later this week, Iowa's monthly precipitation total - at 4.91 inches as of Monday - could surpass the state's second-highest October total of 5.93 inches recorded in 1941, Hillaker said. It's unlikely, though, to break the all-time October record of 6.42 inches set in 1881, he said.

Worse, the month has been “persistently wet,” with precipitation recorded in all but four of the month's first 26 days, leaving little time for drying between showers, the climatologist said.

In addition, the seasonal advance toward shorter, cooler, gloomier days offers little basis for optimism about a turnaround.

Corn still standing in the field has an average moisture content of about 27 percent, well above the 15 percent safe storage level, so considerable drying with costly propane will be required, said Roger Elmore, an Iowa State University Extension corn specialist.

Soybeans still in the field generally test between 17 percent and 20 percent moisture and will require drying to bring them to the 12 percent moisture content required for storage.

“Everybody is going to be combining wet beans. It's not going to be pretty,” said Palle Pedersen, an ISU Extension soybean specialist.

With their 12-row combines and 1,000-bushel grain carts, farmers can glean hundreds of acres a day under favorable conditions. Even if the fields dry out, though, they will face serious bottlenecks drying the moisture-laden grain before storage, said Northey.

A hard freeze may be required before heavy harvest equipment can traverse fields without cutting ruts into them or becoming mired in the mud, he said.