Corn Still Standing in Illinois

The final USDA crop progress report on this year’s harvest released last week showed that 95 percent of the nation’s corn crop was finally harvested, just a few days before Christmas. Illinois was on par with the national total, reporting five percent of the crop left in the field.

I saw some of that corn this week during a visit to northern Illinois, around Kankakee and St. Anne. Some of it is still standing well, but some of it got hit pretty hard by a storm that blew in last week with up to 40 mile an hour winds.

I also talked with a couple of farmers in the area, both of whom said they will be very glad to see 2009 come to an end. Jim Wade of Clifton says he just finished harvest two weeks ago but it wasn’t as bad as 1967 when he was still had corn in January. Wade still won second place in the Ridge Till Non-Irrigated category for Illinois in the National Corn Yield Contest with a yield of 260.841 on his contest plot.

Meanwhile, Ron Hansen of Kankakee told me that he still has about 300 more acres of corn to finish up, but it is still standing pretty well. “With the cool summer, it’s done some things that I’ve never seen in my lifetime,” Hansen said. “Like not maturing the corn and beans like normal so we are caught with this real late wet corn – but we are having good yields.” As to when he will get the rest of his crop out of the field, Ron said he just doesn’t know.