Harvest time

The 2009 fall harvest is one for the record books. Not because it's almost mid-September with a bumper crop in the bins, but because the wheat harvest is less than half done.

"It's a weird year," Dan Engebretson of the Ray Farmers Union Elevator Company said of this year's small grain harvest. "Get 10 miles west of town, and they are probably 50 percent done. Right around here and north, there is hardly anything that's been done."

Williston Horizon Resources Grain Division manager Brian Fadness said the harvest is at least a month late, while Richard Larson of New Century Ag in Fortuna said things are just starting in that corner of the state.

Fadness and Engebretson report near-record yields are being seen, which is the primary benefit of a very cool growing season.

"The cool weather allowed everything to grow and fill," Fadness said. "There was no heat stress, although I think later on here, I think these guys would have appreciated some (heat)."

Morning fogs, heavy dews and scattered rain combine for a negative impact on grain quality, Fadness said.

"So far, the delay is more in the area of you just can't put in a full day of combining in," he said.

Engebretson said harvest days have gone from about 11 hours in length to seven because days are shorter and generally not as hot to burn off morning dews.

"It's all going to be weather dependent what this crop is going to look like," he said. "The days are getting short really fast."

Larson said around Fortuna, "We've barely started cutting durum up here. Yields are good. Test weight and color is good. Protein is a little on the low side."

The bulk of the harvest still requires a couple of weeks of good weather, he added.

"The elevators have room and we're buying grain," Larson said.

Engebretson said quality is good on harvested grain so far, but proteins are running a little low compared to normal and is raising some concern.

"To make label, they have to have at least 13-percent durum," he said. "If they don't make 13-percent durum, consequently it can't be packaged for food."

Some producers in the immediate Ray area are chemically spraying the wheat to kill it to have it mature.

"We've really never done that in this area before," he said. "They do this in other parts of the state. Further east of here they have done it."

Engebretson said they do have a bid for any protein, any color durum which is 65 cents off the milling price, so producers have a chance of recouping their input costs.

It's also been a great year for peas, as Fadness said producers are seeing good quality crops.

"Yellow peas have been running 50-60 bushels per acre," Fadness said. "Test weights on peas were extremely high."

Engebretson said the pea harvest has been spotty around Ray. He said of lot of peas were ripe, but then bad weather popped the pods and peas fell to the ground.

"It doesn't take much when they are ready," Engebretson said of opening pea pods.

Overall, the 2009 small grain season is one that's never been seen by most producers.

"As far as raising a good crop, it's been a phenomenal year. It's been perfect for growing wheat," Fadness said. "But for ripening it and getting it into the bin, it hasn't been that good of a year."