Farmers 'pleasantly surprised' by strong crop yields

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – For overmuch of the summer, the adust upwind was being compared to the drought of 1988.

That was a atrocious twelvemonth for Minnesota farmers and galore person been anticipating a challenging harvest season. But that’s not needfully the case.

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“I spell backmost to ’88 wherever we had one-third of a harvest of corn,” said Brian Peterson.

Through decades of farming, Far Gaze Farms adjacent Northfield has seen it all. A drought successful 1988, a tornado successful 2018 that caused millions of dollars successful damage, and present successful 2021 a drought.

But what began arsenic soybean harvest skepticism for Peterson and his family, has turned into optimism.

“I ever similar to beryllium cautiously optimistic and we’ve been pleasantly surprised,” said Peterson.

Some parts of confederate Minnesota are getting up to 70 bushels an acre for soybeans. That’s a triumph for farmers, considering however the increasing play started.

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There are a fig of factors that allowed soybeans to retrieve successful galore parts of the state. Timely upwind and genetics were key.

“The aged adage is, ‘the August rains marque the soybean crop.’ I deliberation that’s the case. It came a small spot later, sometimes successful September,” said Dave Nicolai, University of Minnesota Extension. “But nonetheless, bully crop, bully yields and that should reward the farmers financially.”

That won’t beryllium the lawsuit everywhere, arsenic parts of cardinal and occidental Minnesota inactive deficiency bully ungraded moisture. But successful Dakota and Rice counties, wherever precocious summertime rains came, it made a satellite of difference.

“Financially it does precise overmuch assistance the agrarian economy. So determination is simply a spin-off effect successful presumption of that,” said Nicolai.

A forecast that shows drier upwind successful the week up could besides bode good for the maize crop.

“We were predicting each on debased to possibly an mean yield, but immoderate of these yields person been mean to supra normal,” said Nicolai.

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Farmers accidental if the upwind stays adust this autumn it besides means they won’t person to walk arsenic overmuch wealth drying their crops this harvest season.

John Lauritsen