This week’s article will continue the fall harvest theme. Would you bend over to pick up a penny? How about 2 or 3 pennies? If so, would you do it thousands of times?
Many soybean fields were harvested this year in mid to late September, several weeks earlier than usual. It is impossible to collect 100% of the crop when harvesting. Soybeans can be shattered from the pods on the plant while the machine tries to gather the crop. Any voids in machinery will spill some grain. There are several adjustments during the cutting, gathering, threshing or cleaning that can also cause harvest losses. Each farmer is responsible for adjusting and operating their machinery to limit loses to “acceptable” levels.
With the early harvest this fall and ample moisture and heat, many of those spilled soybeans have started to grow. Many areas of the harvested fields are turning green. In my own fields I can see dark green lines where the combine tires pressed soybeans into the soil that eventually germinated and grew. Soybean losses always happen at harvest. However, as I watch the fields turn green with a “double crop” of soybeans I question what could have been done to lessen the amount of lost crop.
While the growing of cover crops is encouraged to protect soils from erosion and to improve soil health, spilling the crop being harvested is not a recommended strategy. This makeshift cover crop will disappear quickly after the first killing frost.
In some of the corn fields the harvest losses are even more drastic. In most situations, harvest losses should be under 5%, with 2% a very good goal. In good standing corn, with a combine set perfect, a farmer can hope to keep corn losses in the field during harvest to 1 bushel per acre or less.
Kernel losses are usually not drastic. The old rule I remember is every kernel of corn or 2 soybeans per square foot is equal to a bushel of lost yield. Lost ears of corn add up much quicker. What is each ear really worth?
Using a yield of 200 bushels for corn and a planting rate of 35,000 seeds per acre, it takes 175 ears of corn to equal a bushel. With the current price of $5/bushel, it means each ear of corn is worth about 3 cents for a very large ear. Small ears would only be worth a penny. That may not seem like a lot, however, in some areas of the field there are lots of ears on the ground. And like the soybeans, some of the first fields of corn harvested have volunteer corn plants that are growing.
Recently I was harvesting a portion of a cornfield that was flattened by earlier storms. After harvest there were many ears of corn left on the ground. It was very disheartening to know how much money was being left out in the field. 75-100 years ago it was common practice to turn livestock out onto fields after harvest to glean up any lost ears. That is not possible today. It is rare to find livestock on most farms, yet alone fences. Also, glean is not a typo. Find a dictionary if confused.
I wonder if there is anywhere I could rent a fence and some pigs for a couple of weeks to harvest my losses. Perhaps a new business opportunity is on the horizon.
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