Filed under: Fall, Farm, harvest, Minnesota, Soybeans | Tags: farm, harvest, Minnesota, Soybeans
Despite last weeks 8 to 12 inch rainfall across southern Minnesota, the combines are hard at work bringing in the harvest. Where the tile lines are working, or slopes sufficient, the combines are moving down the rows. In places with potholes and seeps, the pattern is more circular. So far ours is more straight, but we are doing some close encounters of the wet kind.
There are two ways to harvest around a wet spot. One is to figure out where you think it’s wet and just go around it. The other is to drive straight at the water until the wheels start to sink in and then back up. The second method is better at getting most of the crop out, but also a good way to get stuck. So far I’ve stayed out of the water.
Travel around the area and you will see lots of spots in bean fields where combines have been circling the water. What happens to the beans left in the water is up for debate. I’m not expecting there to be much for beans left where the water was high. I know that in my own fields, as you approach the water, the bean yield goes down to next to nothing.
Whether I do go back for the few beans left is going to depend on how fast the water goes away. I expect that we will harvest today, then take the weekend off to wait for the last fields to mature. If the water has not gone away by the time we finish bean harvest I plan to just abandon the last few bushels and go to corn harvest. There are just not enough beans out there to worry about. Others with larger areas of unharvested beans may go back and get their low spots, but that is my plan for now.
Michael
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