GOSHEN COUNTY – With 63 percent of the area’s corn in the bins, producers are finally well on their way to putting closed to what’s by any measure been a difficult growing season.
“We are seeing guys in the field with their combines,” said Carrie Eberle, assistant professor of agronomy and cropping system at the Hageman Sustainable Agriculture Research and Extension Center south of Lingle.
“People are pushing to get some grain taken in before the next winter storms move in,” she said. “We’re still behind statewide where we normally are this time of year.”
The harvest progress to date hasn’t come without a few issues, though, Eberle said. Producers in some parts of the county are harvesting corn at 16 percent moisture or greater, well above the 13.5 to 14 percent that’s ideal for long-term storage.
That corn coming in wet means the potential to get docked in price at the elevator or having to pay drying costs if storing on the farm, she said. Add to that low test weights, and it’s a guessing game whether it’s best to harvest or leave the corn in the fields to hopefully dry a
“Guys are having to make that decision if they want to keep waiting or pull the trigger,” Eberle said. “It’s not surprising to see lower test weights in a lot of our corn this year.”
Loads of harvested corn crossing the scales at West Plains Elevator in Lingle are yielding average to a bit below average, said Shad Shimic, supervisor for the company’s four locations in Wyoming and Nebraska. The weather this year was a mixed blessing, he said, with the wetter-than-normal season making up for some of the problems caused by the loss of irrigation water with the Gering-Fort Laramie Canal tunnel collapse.
“The wet season kind of made up for the loss of canal water,” Shimic said. “But then we had a hailstorm come through. (The crop) wasn’t looking too bad until the hail.”
Corn is entering the West Plains storage at between 14.5 and 15.5 percent, with lower test weights caused by that lack of moisture when it was needed the most, Shimic said. County wide, test weights are averaging 54-pounds to the bushel, below the average 56 pounds or better during a normal growing season.
Issues with decreased yields and test weights is only exacerbated by decreased prices for what corn there is, he said. Prices locally were down 18-cents Wednesday morning, at $3.48 at Crossroads Co-op locations in Lyman and Gering in Nebraska and West Plains depot in Gering.
Cash corn prices faired a little better on the national market, pulling in $3.56 a bushel, up 2.56 cents.
“Markets are kind of just staying right there,” Shimic said. “They’re not moving a whole lot. I think that will probably happen after the harvest is complete.”
The fact eastern Wyoming and western Nebraska aren’t the only areas dealing with a less-than-ideal harvest this year could turn out to be a glimmer of good news on down the road, he said. Producers, particularly people who also feed cattle and have storage, will have to decide if they want to sell their corn now or hold off, banking their corn against possible cost increases when it comes time to buy grain to feed their cattle.
“I don’t know who’s selling what, but some will have to sell it now as it comes in,” Shimic said. “Anybody who’s got their own bins probably will hold on to it, only sell what they have to sell.”
