Indiana’s Harvest Features Extreme Yield Variability

In the latest government update, Indiana corn harvest is 61 percent complete and soybean harvest is 75 percent. In a Channel Seed harvest update from North Central Indiana, field sales representative Daniel Stauffer estimates progress now mid-week a little better than the state numbers.

“I think North Central Indiana, most of my geography, we’re somewhere around 90 percent complete on soybean harvest,” he told HAT. “You’ve got some double crop fields and you have some maybe later-planted fields, or guys that focused on corn earlier, on getting some stuff out of the fields, but then a little tougher to say on corn. They’re going to continue to make quick progress without any rain, but I would say somewhere around that 60 to 70 percent complete on corn.”

Although very dry conditions have allowed for continual harvest this fall, the lack of moisture is showing up on the yield monitors and creating “extreme variability even within relative to one field,” he said. “But you talk about the 8 to 10 counties that I move across, just extreme differences within a county or across those 10 where some places guys are getting field records on yields. Corn upwards of 240 to 270 in some areas and I’ve got some guys that’ll be averaging somewhere around that 225 to 240 range.”

But others may end up with averages in the 140-160 bushel range. Bean yields are also wide-ranging.

“Where the rain or disease affected them worse off, seeing somewhere in that 30 to 45 bushel on the low end. For field averages on the high end there’s plenty of folks in that 60 to 65 range on the high end.”

HAT asked Stauffer how this season is affecting farmers in the combine. Hear about it in the full HAT and Channel Seed growing season update: