Looking for Some Record Yields in Tippecanoe County

Tippecanoe Co update

Kevin UnderwoodReports of combines starting harvest in Hoosier farm fields are now surfacing, but for one Tippecanoe County farmer it’s not quite time yet. Even though there were sightings of both soybean and corn harvest just to the south in Montgomery County Friday, Kevin Underwood says it will be another week and a half to 2 weeks before his harvest begins.

“We need a little bit more heat yet, especially on the soybean side,” he told HAT. “Generally the later planted and later maturity beans still are fairly green, and so they’ve got a lot of growth to get to that point where they’re physiologically mature. As far as the corn is concerned, we’re getting close to black layer but most of the corn hasn’t quite hit that physiological maturity yet, so we need some time to get that crop finally finished off and then to let it do a little bit of dry down before we’ll really be ready to roll really hard.”

Underwood has spotted SDS in his soybeans but he’s not overly concerned about its impact.

“In most of our soybean fields we’ve got little spots, nothing that’s looking like it’s going to greatly damage the crop as far as its yield potential. Most of it has come in late enough to the point where it’s not going to impact overall yield. Some fields we have seen in the area that have been affected more so, and those are obviously are going to have a yield reduction as a result.”

Corn yield potential looks very promising right now, as do soybeans, especially the early planted beans. But will he get some record yields?

“I think that’s highly likely, especially on the corn side,” he said, “at least from what we’ve seen walking fields. It looks like the potential is there at this point. I think most of us in the farming community would just as soon that the storms would clear out and go away until harvest is finished, because that’s the biggest concern, that every time one of these rounds of storms comes and we have high winds or hail, that would be the worst nightmare, to have the potential there and then have and end up with it on the ground.”

There have been storms in Underwood’s part of Indiana but they have not yet laid down any of the crops, but he is haunted by what happened in 2001.

“We had a hail storm come in on September 30th and made an absolute tangled mess of everything. It’s one of those things that you don’t ever forget that kind of scenario, and we’d like to have that kind of thing not repeat itself.”

Hoosier Ag Today brings you the latest from the fields across Indiana with Crop Watch – brought to you by Trupointe Cooperative and Winfield Solutions – now open in Milford.

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