Rainfall delays crops, but some Illinois farmers on schedule

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) - October has had weather comparable to what is seen in all four seasons. Through it all, area farmers were working through the conditions to collect this year's crop ahead of the winter.

During a recent rainy spell, Seifert, of RTS Family Farms headquartered in rural Auburn, said his harvest is on track to be completed by his target date in mid-November. Higher-than-usual rain totals has pushed soybean harvesting back by a few days, he said, because it's harder to harvest that crop when the ground is wet.

'œWhen it's wet, you can't cut beans,'ť Seifert told the State Journal-Register. 'œBeans have got to be dry. And it's really hard to dry beans mechanically with the dryer. We can shell corn as long as the husk and stuff are dry.'ť

Despite abnormalities in the weather and the market - don't get him started on the market, he warns - this year's crop is above average, Seifert said. Unusually warm weather in early October naturally dried a lot of his crop outside of what was planted later in the season, he said.

Depending on the incline and its location, some plots have been inundated with rainwater and in some cases, despite being replanted four times, aren't growing anything, Seifert said. There was record rainfall in August during a storm in Sangamon County and annual rainfall is above average.

'œThe crop that was planted in April and May has dried down really good and we've gotten it out,'ť Seifert said. 'œAnything planted after that, the rain is set in and it's just not drying down as fast as it normally would.'ť

It rained for three consecutive days beginning Oct. 13. Each rainfall, as the ground gets wetter and wetter, Seifert has to wait to harvest soybeans in addition to the logistical challenges of moving vehicles through wet fields. There's a chance of rain again beginning Sunday.

Seifert explained wet soybeans can't be harvested because the actual beans are inside pods. Those pods are 'œgummy'ť when wet and don't really pop open to produce beans, he said. The wet ground will keep him and his farmers from harvesting soybeans for a few days after it rains, he said.

'œIt's a struggle when the weather doesn't cooperate on beans because you need a lot more dryer weather. At this point we don't need anymore rain, the ground is pretty saturated. So it's going to make it difficult for farmers to finish up their harvest,'ť said Diana Beaty, president of Sangamon County Farm Bureau.

Beaty said she hasn't had a lot of time to check in with her members because she's been busy during harvest on her own farm near Rochester.

Seifert said he estimates close to a majority of area farmers are either done or very close to being done harvesting corn. Many switched their plots from soybeans to corn because of all the rain midway through planting season, he said.

As other farmers were producing wet corn earlier in harvest, Seifert was able to get a premium for being able to sell dry corn when others weren't because of his solar-powered drying system.

The automated dryer is able to dry 800 to 1,000 bushels an hour. Being able to harvest 30,000 bushels a day, he has to start his harvest earlier in September while others begin later to make up for the overlap.

This season he's had to use the dryer to dry his white corn and some yellow corn that was planted late. He didn't have to use it for a couple of weeks because the warm weather naturally dried more mature corn, he said, but it came in handy during wet spots because he was able to provide corn at moisture levels to be considered food-grade corn.

'œNot only did it save us financially, but it also gained us a couple more weeks so we could go get after it,'ť said Wes Seifert, Tim's son who also works at the farm. He said it costs about 8 cents a bushel to dry corn in-house while it costs about 40 cents a bushel to store and dry it in a grain bin elsewhere.

Overall, Wes Seifert said drying corn in-house has saved the family about 40% on drying rates since they installed it five years ago. Tim Seifert said tax subsidies from the state 'œvirtually paid for the system'ť and led to his decision to utilize energy from the solar bank.

'œI think solar is the wave,'ť Tim Seifert said. 'œBut I also think you've got ethanol, you've got a lot of renewable energy out there. So let's not forget about that. We need that from the corn, we need that from the beans, the biodiesel.'ť

Seifert said he isn't a fan of installing solar panels on flat, farmable land. But he said he likes his panels because they're out of the way and sit atop existing structures.

Sangamon County produced a comparable level of its two main crops, soybeans and corn, in 2020 despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and related market insecurities. According to data collected by the National Agriculture Statistics Service, 44,858,000 bushels of corn was harvested in 2020 compared to bushel totals of 45,582,000 and 44,712,000 in 2019 and 2018, respectively.

For soybeans, 10,938,000 bushels were harvested in Sangamon County in 2020 compared to bushel totals of 10,764,000 and 15,052,000 in 2019 and 2018, respectively, according to NASS.

'œI don't even know what a normal year is anymore,'ť Seifert said when asked if 2021'²s harvest was abnormal.

Illinois agriculture is a $19 billion industry with a majority of that profit coming from corn, according to the Illinois Department of Agriculture. Market value of products sold by Sangamon County farms was $352,624,000 in NASS' 2017 agriculture census, data for which is collected every five years.