Jerry Haynes shared this photo of his mom, Emily Haynes, riding in a combine during corn harvest. The 95-year-old also helped drill wheat and bale hay earlier this year.
Corn harvest starts to pick up; freeze hurts sugar beets
Corn harvest is just getting started for local farmers.
Steve Young of CHS Grainland said on Monday, Oct. 14, that they were sitting at around 5% of what they expect will come in for this year’s harvest, and the corn that has come in is mostly dryland.
Paoli Co-op’s Steve Bahnsen said the first load of corn came in last weekend. While it’s a bit too early to tell, he said that if corn didn’t get hail, he expects it to look good this year.
Holyoke experienced a hard freeze last week, and Young said that should help the corn’s moisture come down so it can be harvested. Thursday, Oct. 10, dipped down to 14 F, with a high of 30 F and a trace of snow.
“There’s no doubt the weather has really impacted us,” said Les Watada regarding Western Sugar’s beet harvest. “The freeze did not help us at all.”
The regular harvest was scheduled to begin Oct. 9, but due to the weather forecast, Western Sugar began taking in beets a few days earlier. The hard freeze stalled progress, and Watada said the company is now on an allocated harvest, meaning they are only taking in a small portion of the crop.
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