By TIM UNRUH

Salina Journal

If combines could only float, a good harvest would be nearly had.

Milo, soybeans and other fall crops, bulging with bounty and ripe for picking, are mired in mud and standing water.

"I went out (Sunday) to the field I was going to cut next and couldn't hardly get down the road," said Steve Clanton, a Minneapolis-area farmer.

Half of the corn and soybeans in the Delphos Co-op trade area have been harvested and 10 percent or less of the milo, said Dave Studebaker, the co-op general manager.

"We haven't cut any of the double-crop sunflowers," he said, meaning sunflowers that were planted after wheat harvest.

"This year, we've got a little bit of everything left," Studebaker said. This time last year, he said, the corn and soybeans were safely stored away.

Rain Thursday in the Delphos area -- 1.5 to 1.9 inches -- put a halt to harvest.

Grain markets closed up Monday for all of the major fall crops. The price in Delphos for soybeans was $9.39 a bushel, up 21 cents; corn, $3.32, up 16 cents; milo, $3.11, up 16 cents; and sunflowers, up 10 cents to $12.80 for 100 pounds.

"It seems like we have a day and a half of poor harvest conditions, and it rains and takes another five days for that to dry out," said Justin Knopf, who farms in the Gypsum and Kipp areas.

"We've got a fantastic crop. The bean fields we've cut so far have some of the higher yields we've had," he said. "It's just too wet."

Knopf is seeing soybean yields in the mid 50s to near 60 bushels to the acre, when a normal average yield is 35 to 40 bushels to the acre. Clanton said he's averaged 58 so far. For both, the potential is there for this fall harvest to be among their best.

"A lot of our profits are still in the field," Clanton said.

Worried about soybeans

But all they can do is look at it, while the dead, or nearly dead, plants begin to deteriorate and become less able to hold up the grain for combines.

"As it gets later, the pods will open and drop soybeans onto the ground," Knopf said. "So far, I have not seen many pods open up."

When the bean pods get wet and then dry down, Clanton said, chances increase that the soybeans will pop out.

"In my county (Ottawa), we've had about three wet-and-dry spells. That makes me nervous," he said. "We're also nervous about snow on the milo."

Wet conditions have caused several concerns, said Tom Maxwell, of Salina, the Central Kansas Extension District agricultural agent.

"There's a few (soybeans) starting to pop out and shatter," he said. "I haven't seen any milo go down, but I have seen some pretty good size flocks of birds feeding on milo. There's gotta be some bushels lost there."

Maxwell said he's seen some corn sprouting, which can reduce its value, and there have been reports of corn stalks falling over.

Since the latest rain Wednesday and Thursday, it will take time for the fields to dry out, but in some spots of Saline County, such as flat areas near Smolan, "there's water laying everywhere," Maxwell said.

A window of opportunity

High temperatures this week are predicted to be 63 to 65 degrees, with lows in the low to mid-40s.

"If there's any window of opportunity for guys to harvest this week, they're gonna be going at it hard," Maxwell said.

The majority of fields that are planted to wheat every year have been seeded, he said.

"The acres that didn't get planted were wheat after soybeans or corn, or possibly milo," Maxwell said. "On some of the bean ground that was cut, it was too wet to drill."

It's not too late to plant wheat, but by now, he said, the yield potential has lessened.

"As we get into November, we're running out of time for wheat to grow and develop tillers," Maxwell said.

Tillers are shoots from the plant. Each tiller will produce a wheat head, which holds the grain that's harvested next summer.

"The heads from fall tillers are the most productive," he said.

Slower to germinate

Normal seeding rates range from 60 to 80 pounds an acre, but at this late date, the recommended rate is 100 to 120 pounds of wheat an acre.

"You've got to go up in the amount of seed to compensate for the lack of tillering," Maxwell said.

With cooler soils, he said, the wheat will be slower to germinate, especially where no-till farming practices are used, and soil is shielded from the sun by plant residue.

"It's going to take longer for that seed to come up and emerge," Maxwell said.

n Reporter Tim Unruh can be reached at 822-1419 or by e-mail at tunruh@salina.com.

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