Page 30 October 27, 2015
2015 Logan County Farm Outlook Magazine
LINCOLN DAILY NEWS.COM
At the
E
levator
O
n October 19 harvest
was not quite over. Most
locations were expected to wind
down in the next week or two.
At that time Amy Bramer from
Topflight Grain Cooperative
remarked that it was odd to be
done in mid-October.
This was the first harvest in Bramer’s 17
years of experience with no “rain rest.”
Harvest started in earnest the first week of
September and continued without any let-up.
Many farmers have their harvest and their
field work already done, too. The down side
of having no rain-rest is that there was no
time to rest and recover and spend time with
friends and family. And the lack of rain-rest
underscores that producers in this area need
rain for next year’s crop.
The other surprise this season was that bean
volumes were much better than expected.
Bramer quickly ran a report that said that
Topflight was over 107% of last year on
beans. Usually farmers count on an average
of about 55 bushels of beans per acre, but this
year many farmers were reporting over 80
(Bramer said like 83 comes to mind). These
kind of numbers were seen across the grain
belt.
The hybrids are really showing what they
can do, especially beans. The old adage is
that beans don’t like “wet feet.” However,
with these hybrids, early “wet feet” seems to
be ok. Even though the price continues to
be higher for beans and lower for corn, there
were not a lot of acres converted from corn
to beans. Bramer said in this area farmers
largely stick to their crop rotations.
Corn yields were in line with expectations:
slightly above to slightly below. In the
Atlanta area and in fields along Route 10
near Beason and Johnson Siding, they had a
greater accumulation of rain in the mid June
to early July deluge, and corn yields there
were lower than expected. It all depended
on what kind of ground the corn was planted
in. Rolling ground handled the extreme June/
July rains better than flat ground. Overall,
93% of last year’s corn crop was expected.
This corn harvest this year is as solid as any
year.
Corn that was harvested early was coming in
12-13% moisture at first, but later Topflight
Based on an interview with Amy Bramer,
TopFlight Grain Cooperative
Continued
