Heavy rain in Indiana has delayed a harvest once on track to be finished by now in many parts of the state.

Since the middle of October, areas of the state from north to south received 2-3 inches of rain from each of two large weather systems. Now, some corn and soybean growers are hoping the weather cooperates enough for them to be finished well before Thanksgiving.

“I thought this would be an early harvest. This is turning into the latest early harvest I’ve ever been part of,” said Matt Schafer, a corn and soybean producer in LaCrosse, about 30 miles south of Lake Michigan.

“We were kind of on track to have one of our fastest harvests ever. However, that’s obviously not going to happen now,” said Kassi Rowland, a partner at Tom Farms in Leesburg in the northeast part of the state.

Rowland said about 57 percent of corn and 43 percent of soybeans were still out in her 18,000 acres in Kosciusko, Marshall, Huntington, Whitley, Elkhart and Noble counties.

Schafer said nearly all his corn was in while 40 percent of his soybeans were still left to get from his several thousand acres of land in LaPorte and Porter counties. 

A similar weather picture was painted at Mellencamp Farms, Inc. in downstate Columbus.

Owner Richard Mellencamp said his fields drain well in their sandy soil but lack of sun along with humidity the past few weeks have extended the amount of time it normally takes to resume harvesting after a wet period.

He said the damp conditions are also keeping the moisture content too high in the corn and soybeans still out in his several thousand acres of ground.

Mellencamp said he had about 20 percent of each crop to harvest yet. “It’s been the humidity and cloud cover that’s been holding us back,” he said.

Mellencamp said he’s normally done harvesting before Halloween but now is one to two weeks behind schedule. “It just depends on the weather now,” he said.

Tony Wolfe said not quite as much rain came down on the 550 acres he farms in Gibson County in the southwestern part of the state.

He said the amount of precipitation, though, was enough to keep him from harvesting his 55 acres of double crop soybeans. “I would have been cutting them a couple of days ago. Now, I’ll wait a little longer,” he said.

Wolfe said he was finished harvesting his corn and early soybeans before the most recent storm moved in.

Some Indiana farmers like Schafer have reported just average yields of corn and soybean yields slightly below expectations, despite USDA predicting record yields in the state.

Wolfe, though, said his corn and soybean production is the best he’s ever had in his many years of farming.

“Down here, any time we get close to 200 bushels of corn, it’s quite spectacular.  This year, everybody in the neighborhood was pretty well over 200 bushels of corn no matter what kind of ground it is. There’s a lot of 70- and 80-bushel beans around,” he said.

Schafer said he felt unusual warmth late in the growing season that sapped nutrients from the ground was a factor in some of his corn plants having weaker stalks.

He said corn plants filling their ears make up for shortages in nutrients by drawing nutrients from their stalks, which causes them to lose strength.

“We already had some overall plant health issues late in the season that led to some corn that didn’t want to stand all that well. The wind the other night didn’t help,” Schafer said.

Schafer was hesitant to put a time frame on finishing his harvest but felt mid-November is well within reach. He expects he’ll have to dry down his soybeans once they’re brought in because cooling temperatures and declining sunlight hampered the beans’ ability to reduce their moisture content out in the fields. “Drying beans isn’t the most fun thing in the world but it is what it is,” he said.