The weather was quite volatile throughout the 2023 growing season but overall the harvest season has been pretty smooth.

“That’s what we needed was some good sunny, dry days with a little wind and humidity low, and bean harvest rocked,” University of Missouri Extension agronomist Rusty Lee told the Ledger recently. “I’ve seen a lot of producers who’ve already transitioned to anhydrous application and were in the process of putting down nitrogen for next year’s corn crop.”

Lee said the growing season for a lot of producers was not so smooth, especially for their corn crops. Early season drought stunted a lot of corn fields in and around Audrain County but late arriving rains in August and early September helped out with soybeans. Lee said results were so across the board that one blanket assessment really doesn’t work. However, if he had to rate the overall harvest soybeans were average to above average while corn was below average. 

There were some scattered storms in June and July that popped up in some places and those producers lucked out. However, the overall picture wasn’t good.

“There were some corn fields up there that were just burnt,” Lee said. “I could take you to some farms that had some zeros. It was rough depending on where you were and if you caught one of those rains or not.”

A typical yield for a cornfield is about 180 bushels. One farmer the Ledger spoke to near Vandalia said he got only 40 bushels of corn per acre. Soybeans were a different story.

“Most producers I’ve talked to are very surprised at how well the soybeans actually yielded,” Lee said.