A lot of talk recently about soybean harvest moisture, associated yield loss, and management. We see some areas of the state receiving some much-needed rainfall, not only to help soil moisture but also soybean harvest moisture according to South Central Iowa Farmer Bob Scott.
“I think yesterday was the only time in my life I’ve ever seen the yield monitor go below eight percent moisture,” Scott said. “I saw it jump down to seven point seven or seven point eight but most of the time yesterday they were in the eight’s and the day before started in the 10’s. For the corn, it’s between 17 and 20 percent but I only shelled corn for a day or two.”
There are several facets to this conversation as there is definitely more harvest loss from shattering at the head as the crop moisture gets lower. At the same time, the corn is also drying down, benefiting from the warm and dry weather creating less of a need to burn LP gas in the dryer. The yield factor is an increasing scale of bushels per acre less as the moisture goes down, and of course the higher the overall yield the more loss occurs. As far as looking ahead to next year, Scott says he has his rotation pretty much in place.
“I like doing corn after beans,” Scott said. “Years ago, we would grow corn after corn after corn forever, and that kind of worked. I like flip-flopping though; it makes fertility easy as far as putting fertilizer on and using no-till right into the soybean stubble.”
We wish Bob and all producers a safe harvesting season from the Iowa Agribusiness Radio Network.
