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Rain makes big crop difficult to harvestSIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP)--Record and near-record corn and soybean crops sit in area fields tantalizing farmers, but there is one problem: In many places, it's been too wet to get at them. A cool, damp summer delayed the growing season. Then, in the past month, as farmers prepared to harvest crops still laden with moisture, seemingly interminable rain made a bad situation worse. "Never in my life have I had to dry soybeans before. We're doing it this year,'' said Bill Chase, president of the South Dakota Corn Growers, who farms near Wolsey. Variations of that refrain are being heard throughout East River. "I've been here nine years,'' Steve Domm, CEO of the Central Farmers Cooperative and Fremar, LLC, of Marion, said late last week. "I don't think we've dried 50,000 bushels of soybeans prior to this year. This year, the dryer has not shut off for 11 days straight. We're drying 95 percent of our beans.'' In a normal year, by the first week in November in South Dakota, about 95 percent of soybeans and 55 percent of corn already would be out of the field, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service. This year, only half of the soybeans have been harvested and 12 percent of corn. 'Redefining what dry is' "And it's not ready either, to be perfectly honest,'' said Walt Bones, who farms near Chancellor. "We're kind of redefining what dry is this year.'' In a normal year, only soybeans with less than 13 percent moisture content would be sent to the elevator, Bones said. This year, "if we can find beans with under 15 percent, we combine them and send them to town,'' he said. Soybeans with moisture content as high as 19 percent are going into Bones' farm storage and being air dried with the hope of wringing them out. Early last week, in a first pass through corn, Bones said the family combines were bringing in kernels with moisture content as high as 24 percent. Larry Diedrich, who farms near Elkton, said his corn is coming out of the field with a moisture content as high as 30 percent. Ideally, it should be less than 17 percent. Insurance deadline looms "The silver lining is the yields have been just absolute records for us,'' Bones said. "Mother Nature is making it a challenge to put it in the bin and get a check for it, but we're battling her.'' The next several days should be a welcome change for farmers in terms of weather. Forecasters are predicting little chance of rain through Sunday, with high temperatures in the mid-50s to low 60s. When the harvest began this year and farmers could see the way things were shaping up, "We were laughing that maybe we would have Thanksgiving dinner in the field this year. I think we might be starting to think of Christmas dinner,'' Chase said. A harvest that stretches past mid-December could exceed the deadline for federal crop insurance to cover crops in the field. Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin has written to the USDA's Risk Management Agency, which oversees federal crop insurance, asking it to extend the insurance period for Midwest farmers as much as possible. "This is one of the longest, most challenging harvests in years,'' she said. A stressful situation In subtle ways, it wears on an aging corps of farmers and others in the agricultural sector. "It's stressful on farmers and their families. It's especially frustrating when they have a great crop and they can't get to it,'' said Kathy Zander, executive director of the South Dakota Feed and Grain Association. "It's stressful for the people at elevators trying to provide good service to their customers.'' Wet soybeans don't separate well from pods and stalks, Domm said. "When that trash gets hung up in the dryer, that starts fires,'' he said. Zander has heard reports of several grain dryer fires. Even when elevator employees avoid fires, drying soybeans and corn is a tedious task, resulting in long lines for farmers and truck drivers "The days we've been able to harvest, we've had upwards to an hour or an hour-and-a-half lines,'' Domm said. Chase said elevators have been staying open 24 hours a day and through the weekends. I'm impressed with the service the elevator people are giving us,'' he said. But for some farmers, the late harvest and lengthy delays to dry wet grain have cut into the harvest work force. "The kids have gone back to college,'' Chase said. "It's a problem for some people, having enough help to get it done.'' Forest has benefited While the weather has been an aggravation to anyone trying to harvest grain, the cool, damp year has been a benefit to the Black Hills National Forest. The weather has made trees better able to fight insect infestations, according to forest spokesman Frank Carroll. There was virtually no wildfire season during the summer, and the damp fall has enabled the Forest Service to accelerate prescribed burning. "Since this recent weather started, we've burned thousands of hand piles of brush. There's a lot of burning in progress,'' he said. The relatively damp summer also was good for growing grass, giving grazing permitees more days to graze cattle in the forest, Carroll said.
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