OMAHA (DTN) -- Harvest has been intermittent on our eastern Nebraska farm. I can see harvest lasting into December.

The first two weeks of this month were dry, warm and windy. That helped crops dry down. Now, we are back to cool, cloudy November weather and prospects for further in-field drying are poor. I hope the snow and heavy rains stay away for the next three weeks so the corn can stay standing. A cold front would firm the soil and make harvest easier, but according to Bryce Anderson, DTN meteorologist, such weather isn't in the forecast for the rest of the month.

GRAIN STORAGE AND DRYING

We resurrected our old Middle States dryer/fan combination that is attached to a York grain bin. The batch dryer system has been working, but the Sukup grain stirring machine in the bin has given us fits. It broke down every 12 hours or so and finally quit completely. I ordered another stirrer and should install it next week.

A grain stirrer was not something I wanted to spend money on but had no choice. After 10 days, we have only partially dried 7,000 bushels of corn from 26 percent moisture to 20 percent. That grain is now in a bin with aeration only, until we can dry it down another 2 or 3 points and move it. It must be stirred to keep the air moving through and prevent spoilage.

With corn at more than 20 percent moisture and with price dockages for shrink and drying, we are probably better off drying it at home since we have the batch dryer. That means we can only combine and dry in 6,000- to 7,000-bushel batches of grain at a time. Then we move it and start over. Oh, how tedious.

MILLET HARVEST

We planted 150 acres of German millet with a dose of oilseed radish and red clover seed. We cut and baled 75 acres, but then wet weather in October kept us out of the field. We still have to cut the other 75 acres, but we are windrowing it, so the hay dries down before we bale it. The oilseed radishes are still growing and some are more than 2 feet long and 4 inches in diameter.

On November 15 I finished the arduous tasking of windrowing the millet. I definitely didn't know when I started that it would take nearly two months to complete the task.

I ran into a slew of problems because I was ill-equipped to harvest a cover crop that included oilseed radishes. I learned that you must cut the crop early before radishes get big. If I do it again, I will rent a rotary windrower, cut at a diagonal versus with the planted row and start out the harvest with sharp knives. Since cutting was the slowest part of harvest, I would contract a custom windrower to assist me.

SOYBEAN HARVEST

We had one field of soybeans, and it was combined on November 12 and 13. While that seemed late in the season, the beans were in good condition and the moisture finally dropped to less than 14 percent. By the time we finished the field, they were 10.8 percent. The field's yield average was about 60 bushels per acre, 20 bushels greater than our 5-year farm average. I attribute that to having good bean weather (cool and moist) during August and September.

I tested Monsanto's new second generation Roundup Ready beans (RR2Y) to see if I could bump our long-term yield average of 40 bpa. In our 30-acre field, I planted 18 acres with Producer's Hybrids 286NRR (first generation) and the remaining 12 acres with 2807NR2 (RR2Y).

I fully expected the RR2Y variety to exceed, or at least equal, the yield of the first generation variety. According to the yield monitor, the RR2Y block yielded 58.6 bushels while first generation RR beans yielded 62.4 bushels.

To be honest, the 12-acre RR2Y block was a different location, not side-by-side with the first generation seed. The odd thing is that the first generation RR bean block included end rows and bottom lands that yielded 20 to 40 bpa, while the hilltops with RR2Y sometimes broke 80 bpa.

With RR2Y varieties carrying an additional $20 tech fee, a farmer needs an extra 2 bushels just to pay for the seed and might expect an additional ROI of 2 to 3 bushels per acre.

CORN HARVEST

The corn crop didn’t reach black layer before the first hard frost around Oct. 10. That frost did cause a black layer to eventually form. Corn was wet, is wet (still greater than 20 percent moisture) and will stay wet through harvest.

We started to combine corn 10 days ago and took out more than 1,000 bushels at 26 to 27 percent moisture -- too wet. A week later, we were back and took out another 5,000 to 6,000 bushels from the same field after it had dropped to 23 percent moisture. Just imagine: a 105-day hybrid planted May 10 and on November 12 still testing 23 percent moisture.

While the corn is wet, according to the yield monitor, we are harvesting around 200 bushels to the acre -- our best-ever yields. That is the good news.

CORNSTALK HARVEST

Somehow during corn harvest, we need to fit in raking and baling cornstalks. I want to run an H&S hi-capacity bi-fold v-rake across the field. That will capture about 40 percent of the husks, leaves, tassels and the stalk above the ear point. We will then bale up the material with a John Deere 567 baler using net wrap.

Daniel Davidson can be reached at daniel.davidson@dtn.com

(GH/ES/KM)

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