ELLSWORTH TWP., Ohio (WKBN) – Many of us have been enjoying this week’s weather, but none more so than our farmers. It gave them a nice stretch of days to get into the fields, and on some farms, the soybeans have been harvested or are almost harvested. The corn comes next.
In Mahoning County’s Ellsworth Township Thursday afternoon, farmer Ward Campbell was almost done harvesting his soybeans.
“With any luck, we should finish ours tonight and we’ll be ready to start on corn,” he said.
As the harvested soybeans were being off-loaded, Campbell was saying his yields per acre have never been better.
“As good as we’ve ever had, I’d say, on the beans. It’s probably five or seven bushels over average for the county,” he said.
“Talking with a few farms locally, we’re seeing pretty decent yields,” said Haley Shoemaker of the Mahoning County Extension Service.
Shoemaker says 65% of the soybean crop and 20% of the corn have been harvested across Ohio. She attributes the bountiful harvest to the summer’s weather.
“Overall, the growing season was pretty favorable as far as making sure we had enough precipitation, not too much,” she said.
“When we needed rain, we got rain. Most years, you have a six-week dry spell right when the corn and beans need it the worst. This year, we didn’t have that,” Campbell said.
Next will come the corn harvest, and as long as there’s not heavy rain, the corn yield per acre should be a good one too.
“It looks like 200 bushel corn or better, and the average is like 180, 175 or 180. So the corn’s going to be well above average,” Campbell said.
When asked about the corn harvest, both Campbell and Shoemaker said the moisture content of the crop is still a bit too high. It’ll be another week or two before the corn harvest begins.
