The fall harvest is currently ongoing, with farmers in and around the county hopping on their combines in the hopes weather and other factors over the past few months leave them with enough quality corn and soybeans to end the year strong.

Gateway FS Grain Originator Michael Biethman offered a relatively positive assessment of the area’s current harvest – though much of Monroe County’s fields still have yet to be cleared.

Regarding overall harvest progress, Biethman said things have been busier lately in the bottoms as land down there has better draining soil, handling water in a way that allows farmers to the west of the county to plant and harvest first.

Though comparatively behind, farmers in the county’s hills are still making progress and will continue to do so with the hopeful fair weather.

“Monroe County, the harvest progression, you can see it, and it starts in the west in the bottoms,” Biethman said. “The Valmeyer bottoms, Fults bottoms, those guys have been going since August.”

Though much of the harvest remains, Biethman was able to speak on the grain quality he’s heard about so far, noting that corn acreage in the area seems to have been able to avoid aflatoxin which tends to come about particularly in dry years.

Further, corn test weight seems to be up by half or even a full point from last year with average yields in the county coming close to approaching 200 bushels per acre.

Biethman said he has heard less from local farmers about soybean harvests, though what he has heard seems to indicate some of the beans already harvested are smaller than hoped.

“From the guys that I’ve heard from, the beans are a little bit smaller this year, and that is due to they didn’t have a finishing rain,” Biethman said. “They didn’t have rain in early August to make them real plump and get a good-sized bean on there.”

The double crop soybeans planted later seem a bit more hopeful.

Biethman recalled how a particularly nasty drought through the summer and early fall last year had a heavy impact on the harvest as Monroe County was particularly affected.

On price, Biethman said numbers in Waterloo stand at $3.82 per bushel for corn and $10.10 per bushel of soybeans. Last year’s prices stood at $4.07 for corn and $11.67 for soybeans.

While these numbers are down from last year, Biethman was actually rather positive as they are a notable increase from what they were just a few weeks ago.

Prices on Sept. 5 stood at $3.63 for corn and $9.61 for soybeans.

Biethman seemed impressed with these prices as they have seen a downward trend through the year but are now rallying come harvest, a fairly rare occurrence.

“We seem to have bottomed out back in August and early September, and now we’re going back up,” Biethman said. “There were guys that were harvesting in late August or early September, and those guys did make some sales that were, now, probably 50 cents lower than where we are right now, and it’s only been a month. And it’s very strange to a lot of people, myself included, because harvest rallies don’t happen that often.”

He pointed to a recent positive stocks report as a boost to the corn market paired with a dryness in Brazil – which produces more soybeans than the U.S. – during their planting season.

Biethman also spoke about a number of other factors impacting local harvests. In particular, he noted that the Mississippi River, while not as bad as last year, is still down, leading to reduced drafts which negatively impacts the price as less grain can be placed on any given barge.

He also suggested this coming January will likely be busier as contracts are being made to sell grain then given the price rally. This is in contrast to last year’s fall harvest where many farmers held out only to have prices continue to fall.

Biethman further suggested farmers in the area could slightly reduce their wheat acreage next year given rough harvests with the double crop beans planted after the wheat is harvested.

Generally, however, things could be looking up for farmers as they close out the year.

“With this recent rally, I can tell you guys are quite a bit more optimistic,” Biethman said.

Jeremy Neff was one local farmer who offered a more on-the-ground perspective for the ongoing harvest.

Working land near Hecker, Neff said that soybeans planted in April had been taken care of and those planted in May will hopefully be matured in the coming days.

Corn planted in May, Neff said, is still wet, meaning that only a small amount of his corn acreage has been harvested compared to what he’s finished with soybeans.

On quality, Neff echoed Biethman’s sentiments about soybeans winding up smaller given the lack of finishing rain.

“At the beginning of the season, we were pretty optimistic on beans,” Neff said. “With the dryer August, that really kind of took the top end off of beans. We’ve seen that our quality of beans has gone down. We have real small soybeans, so smaller soybeans take more soybeans to make a bushel. We were optimistic at one point for a pretty good soybean yield, now I’d say it’s closer to average, maybe slightly above average.”

He was also hopeful about the recent rains and the impact they could end up having on the later soybean harvest.

“These last rains, yes it has slowed harvest down, but the rain was welcome to kind of replenish the soil, the moisture profile,” Neff said. “Hopefully that helped out our double-crop beans, any of the later planted beans to be able to have a bigger seed size.”

On corn quality, Neff pointed to the recent storm as having a bit of an impact, though the grain itself seems to be alright and will hopefully provide some good yields in the next few weeks.

“We are seeing some stalk damage from the hurricane,” Neff said. “The kernels themselves are still good, but the stalk has deteriorated.”

His overall assessment of the year was neutral. A profit is certainly possible, though if the latter half of the harvest proves to be low-quality, the year could see a loss.

“To me, this is not gonna be the year to buy and upgrade much equipment,” Neff said. “This is gonna be a year to more save and see what the future’s gonna hold. I do think we’ll turn a profit on it.”

George Obernagel, with farmland in Monroe County and surrounding areas, also shared his perspective on the current harvest.

Current progress in Monroe County has around 80 percent of his acreage harvest, though he has seen some delays with recent rain and is hopeful about making good progress along with other area farmers as the forecast looks strong for the next week.

Obernagel was also positive about prices, suggesting the hurricanes impacting much of the country have affected demand.

“Prices came back a little bit,” Obernagel said. “I feel part of that is because of the storms, weather delay. Central Illinois and other areas, a lot of crops will probably be destroyed in areas out on the east coast.”

On yields, Obernagel said some of his irrigated corn fields stand at 225 bushels per acre while others hit hard by rain – particularly those down in the bottoms – are around 163-187 bushels per acre.

For soybeans down in the bottoms, yields stand at 61-90 bushels per acre. His outlook for soybean and corn harvests in the fields were broadly more positive.

Obernagel said quality has been positive so far this harvest.

“A majority of the crops, the grain’s looking really good,” Obernagel said. “The moisture has dropped dramatically on the corn. A lot of it’s dry. Beans, with the nicer weather, they all should be dry in the next day or two.”

Looking ahead, Obernagel seemed generally positive as he noted the fair yields. He also said farmers could expect a further increase in prices as the year comes to a close.

“There’s still a big market spread between harvest now and January,” Obernagel said. “You could pick up 40, 50 cents more between those periods of time, so you don’t have to sell right now.”