A little bit of sunshine would go a long way in jump-starting the soybean harvest across the Northern Plains, as much of the area waits for their fields to dry out. Much of the crop is ready to go or close to being ready to go, but recent rains have delayed the harvest, which at this point is still ahead of schedule or right on schedule for most growers.  

In east-central South Dakota, Northern Soy Marketing (NSM) Secretary/Treasurer David Struck is waiting patiently to get rolling. 

“There’s a couple fields that would probably go if the sun would come out, but we got three inches of rain over the weekend and it’s been a lot of overcast conditions,” said Struck, who farms near Wolsey, S.D. “There are a few beans going off near Watertown but otherwise there’s not a lot going on at the moment.” 

Across the border in Minnesota, producers are on the verge of firing up the combine. NSM Director Patrick O’Leary had the opportunity to give visitors from Southeast Asia a firs-hand look at his almost-ready soybean crop as part of the annual NSM crop tour. 

“If we stay dry, which that’s the challenge of harvest this year, our beans are really close to being harvestable and we may get rolling on corn soon too,”O’Leary said. “You can still see some yellow in between the rows of soybean, but you give them some sunshine, and they’d be ready to go.” 

The problem, however, is that more rain is expected on and off again for the next week for much of the area. 

In the far southeastern corner of Minnesota at the Glen Groth farm, it’s much the same story.  

“I know some people have been going, we have not, but we could get going at any time if the sun comes out,” said Groth. “It’s been really cloudy and cool after our recent rain and that’s been holding us up.” 

Groth is expecting good yields this year while Struck says they will vary greatly from field to field depending on how much moisture they received or if the land was irrigated. He also notes there was some late weed pressure, but it shouldn’t have an impact on end product. 

“In late August the weeds started pushing through, so there’s a few weeds but it’s mostly cosmetic,” Struck said. “I don’t expect it to be yield robbing or anything…just looks bad.”  

In northern Minnesota, where it’s been much drier, soybean harvest slowly got underway about a week ago and continues to ramp up.