OGLE COUNTY — In an interview with the Rochelle News-Leader and Ogle County Life on Nov. 25, Ogle County Farm Bureau Manager Ron Kern said that harvest should be fully wrapped up locally by the beginning of December.
“There may be small pockets of unharvested crops out there, but for the most part harvest is done and the grain is in the bin,” Kern said. “We had a pretty dry fall, so we didn’t really have any weather pressure with things like not being able to get out into the fields. It was excellent weather for fall harvest. We were able to move and move when we wanted to and needed to without any interruptions.”
Kern said from what he’s seen, bean yields have been “around average.” He said Ogle County farmers hoped for better than average yields on beans, but dry conditions around mid-August likely hampered that. For corn, Ogle County farmers have seen “a little or a lot better than average” yields, Kern said.
Growing season locally saw good rain levels and timely rain, which Kern said was the most ideal the county has seen in a while. However, after a dry fall, there is some concern locally about moisture levels ahead of spring planting in 2025.
“We’re starting to show up on the drought index due to recent low moisture,” Kern said. “But there’s still some months ahead of us before the spring. Overall I think this year went well. We still continue to see very low commodity prices. But I don't think there were any complaints about the growing.”
Farmers in the region did not encounter the issue of having to spend money on gas to dry down crops this fall, as most crops dried down in the fields with the weather. After rain did come in recent weeks, farmers were able to do some fall tillage after picking their crops, along with nitrogen application.
The dry harvest time brought with it a number of field fires in the county in recent months.
“Whenever you have a dry harvest season, farmers have to be extra cautious with buildup around the engine compartments of tractors and combines,” Kern said. “This year lent itself to more field and combine fires. Sometimes it’s preventable, sometimes it's something you can't anticipate. It’s unfortunate when those things happen. You just have to hope for no injuries and that the fire can be contained within a certain area and move on from there.”
With high anticipated yields due to good weather conditions earlier in the year, some farmers in the industry encountered or feared a shortage of bin space. Kern said local farmers did not encounter that issue, and that farmers have expanded on-farm storage more in the past 30 years to handle crops better and more efficiently.
Dry weather also caused lower levels of the Mississippi River, which is used by the agriculture industry to ship crops.
“The Mississippi River issue depends on where farmers ship to and out of,” Kern said. “When you get to a point where barges are having trouble getting up and down the Mississippi, that is going to start to play into prices people receive back on the farm. I don’t know if the river level is critical right now, but it definitely could use an influx of water.”
Kern said that two large-scale issues facing farmers right now are trade and the need for a new federal farm bill. A new farm bill comes about every five years, and the most recent one was extended a year.
“Our foreign trade numbers aren't looking all that good,” Kern said. “That weighs heavily on the commodity prices. I think domestic use is holding steady and we seem to be hanging in there. We really need to get more aggressive in the trade market and some of these trade agreements if we're going to try to prop these commodity prices up. And we need congress to get going on crafting a new farm bill and getting it passed and in place to protect things like crop insurance for farmers and those types of things so farmers have the risk management tools they need to continue to try to move forward and profit.”
