Though Last Week's Conditions More Suitable, Farmers Still Struggling to Finish Fall Harvest
Tuesday, November 19th, 2019 -- 8:41 AM
(Wisconsin Ag Connection) -Though conditions were more suitable for fieldwork last week, farmers still struggled to finish up their harvest activity.The Wisconsin Ag Statistics Service noted in its weekly crop/weather summary that snow and sleet midweek marked a transition to milder temperatures and rain for the weekend. A few reporters in southern and eastern Wisconsin said that the frost depth was insufficient to support machinery, but some locations had enough snow on the ground to interfere with harvesting. Grain moistures also remained unfavorably high due to the cold, wet conditions. As of Sunday, the corn for grain was 44 percent harvested, three full weeks behind last year and 18 days slower than the five-year average. Corn condition was 65 percent good to excellent, which is slightly lower than last week.
Corn for silage harvest was 95 percent complete, with moisture content around 24 percent. Just over three-fourths of the soybean have now been harvested. That's two weeks behind the 2018 progress and 20 days behind average. Winter wheat was 84 percent planted, with 60 percent emerged. And fall tillage was reported as 36 percent complete, 14 days behind last year and 21 days slower than normal for this time of year.
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