HARVEST TIME: WEATHER COOPERATES WITH AREA FARMERS

Farmers throughout Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois are taking advantage of warmer weather to harvest remaining crops.

With the warming trend and sunshine, combines, cotton- and corn-pickers have been busily gathering crops from dawn to past dusk.

Poor drying weather has hampered harvesting progress of late crops, but farmers statewide are still ahead of normal with corn, soybeans and sorghum harvesting.

"If the weather continues the trend of the past couple of days, harvesting of corn, soybeans and sorghum could be almost 100 percent by the weekend," said Terry Birk of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency office in Jackson.

"The corn harvest is all but complete now," said Birk. "There may be a few pockets here and there to be harvested."

Ten percent of the soybean crop in Cape Girardeau County remains in fields, but that percentage is narrowing as farmers work long hours this week to take advantage of the weather.

"The sorghum crop is about all in," said Birk. "We figure the sorghum harvest is 98 percent complete."

Farmers had pretty good crops this year. "We didn't have any river flooding this year, but the creeks did rise on occasion, making for some late plantings," said Birk.

A wide variation in yields has been reported.

"The wide variations were in the corn crop," said Birk. "We've had reports all the way from a low of 30 bushes an acre to more than 180 bushels an acre," he said.

Soybean have been most consistent, yielding between 30 and 40 bushels an acre.

Statewide, progress with soybean and cotton harvesting is slightly behind the five-year average, reported the Missouri Agricultural Statistics Service.

Soybeans were reported about 90 percent harvested. The bean harvest is eight days ahead of last year, but slightly below the 91 percent of the five-year average harvest.

Eighty-six percent of the cotton crop has been harvested, nearly a week ahead of last year but behind the five-year average of 89 percent. The bulk of the state's cotton crop is raised in Southeast Missouri.

Statewide, the corn crop is 93 percent harvested, more than a week ahead of last year's 86 percent and the five-year average of 87 percent. Grain sorghum is 92 percent harvested, compared to 88 percent harvested last year and the 89 percent average for this date.

The statistical service reported that winter wheat conditions are rated 1 percent poor, 28 percent fair, 63 percent good, and 8 percent excellent, about the same as last week.

Missouri soybean production this year is forecast at 179 million bushels, up about 19 million bushels from last year. The U.S. yield is expected to top 2.7 billion bushels.

Production in Southeast Missouri is expected to top 33.9 million bushels.

Corn production in the state is expected to top 342 million bushels, down a bit form last year but still the second highest on record. The U.S. forecast is for about 9.3 billion bushels.

Corn production in Southeast Missouri is expected to top 66.6 million bushels.

Cotton production in Missouri is forecast at 520,000 bales, down about 12 percent from a year ago. Nationwide, cotton production is projected at 18.8 million bushels, which would be the fourth largest crop on record.