In a months time virtually no harvesting has taken place across North Central North Dakota, despite a great many acres of Corn, sunflowers and Soybeans still standing.

The delay again all points to the weather.

(Kent McKay, Dir. Vision Research - Berthold) "We hope for a good November and we need some good drying days and those days are short come now the end of October."


Kent McKay with Vision Research of Berthold says even with a full month of idle waiting the crop that is out there is still in great shape

The big surprise for many is the corn

Not only did most of it make it to maturity, but

(Kent McKay, Dir. Vision Research - Berthold) "Most of the corn samples that were brought into our lab have been weighing 53 up to 55 pounds. So that's still you know decent corn that can make ethanol, it's still a grade two corn."


That was after it was dried down, and that is the lingering problem, fields are either too wet to roll machinery through or the crop is too wet to harvest.

(Kent McKay, Dir. Vision Research - Berthold) "We're not at 20 moisture, most of the corn moisture is still very high and just barely hitting that 30 moisture mark so going to be difficult in dealing with the drying and those types of things."


McKay says after the small grain harvest that filled bins and beyond, many farmers don't have enough dryers to go around for a wet crop.

(Kent McKay, Dir. Vision Research - Berthold) "Once we start rolling those sunflowers are probably going to be 12 to 13 moisture and we need to be down below that 8 to 9 moisture for safe long term storage and so how are we going to get all this grain dried."


Fortunately most elevators in the area say they're ready to take in the sunflower harvest when it finally get's rolling

The month long delay has given them enough time to empty bins and make room pending crop.

McKay says we may need as much as a week or more of dry weather to finally get the last harvest of the season underway and do it before any heavy snow set's in that will shut things down until spring.

(Kent McKay, Dir. Vision Research - Berthold) "Hopefully we can get it off and harvest and make some return with it."


Near Berthold witn Your Eye On Agriculture, Shaun Sipma KX News. watch the video | save this article / add to your favorites list