SOUTHEAST MISSOURI CORN HARVEST REACHING HALFWAY POINT

Paul Lanpher and his son, Rus Lanpher, have completed their 1996 early-corn harvest.

"We finished up late last week," said Paul Lanpher. "The harvest was much better than expected."

The Lanphers raise about 500 acres of corn in the Advance area.

"We still have a few late-corn acres left," said Lanpher.

The Lanphers are among numerous big corn growers in Southeast Missouri, and are usually among National Corn Yield Contest top producers every year. Last year, Paul Lanpher's 250.94-bushel-per-acre yield was good for first place in the Missouri Irrigated Division in the annual contest.

The Lanphers, like many Southeast Missouri farmers, utilize irrigation practices. "About 75 percent of our corn crop was irrigated this year," said Lanpher.

Corn harvesting is under way throughout the state, but the bulk of it going into this week has been in the Southeast Missouri area where 43 percent of the crop is in the bins.

"That compares to about 63 percent a year ago," said Bob Bellinghausen, Missouri statistician for the Missouri Agricultural Statistics Service.

Statewide, only 12 percent of the corn crop has been harvested, said Bellinghausen. "That compares with the normal of about 9 percent at this state of the year."

Bellinghausen and Terry Birk of the Cape Girardeau County Agriculture Stabilization and Conservation Service office at Jackson say some corn producers are optimistic about the 1996 crop.

"The corn crop is rated at 18 percent excellent and 51 percent good statewide," said Bellinghausen.

"There are some good crops out there," said Birk. "Harvesting has been limited to the southern portion of the county, and the early corn seems to be turning out well."

Gene Hecht and Bob Adams are still waiting to get in the fields.

"We're probably a week away from harvesting," said Hecht of Shawneetown.

"Most of my corn is late corn," said Adams. "We had a wet spring and were late in planting."

Hecht and Adams were checking the crops on display at the Field Crop tent at the Southeast Missouri District Fair Monday. The annual fair is under way at Arena Park in Cape Girardeau.

Farmers in Missouri this year planted the largest corn crop in the state since 1992. More than two million acres were planted, up from the low level of 1995, when only 1.4 million acres of corn were harvested.

Nationally, corn production is expected to increase 18 percent this year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Based on field conditions in nine Midwestern states, corn yields are projected to be 118.7 bushels an acre, totaling 8.69 billion bushels nationally. That average is up from the 113 bushels an acre in 1995.

A rainy spring delayed planting in much of the Corn Belt, and additional rainfall early in the growing season slowed crop development.

Bad weather delayed planting in many corn-growing parts of the nation, the department reported, but unusually cool July weather allowed crops to complete pollination without suffering from high temperatures.

Meanwhile, soybeans and milo are browning in the fields and will be ready for harvest within two to three weeks.

Missouri farmers planted more than 4.6 million acres of soybeans, virtually unchanged over the past two years.

Nationally, soybean production is forecast at 2.3 billion bushels, a 7 percent increase over 1995 levels. The soybean projection mirrors corn in that the figure is higher than last year.

The USDA report is based on conditions recorded in a survey of planting and harvesting intentions in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, South Dakota, Nebraska, Missouri and Wisconsin.