Plenty of variability expected

GRIDLEY – One local field advisor is predicting plenty of variability for both moisture and yield this fall.

Kyle Wettstein works at the Brandt Consolidated Gridley plant and reports some high-moisture corn was taken out of the field last week for cattle feed. The grower said it wasn’t quite what he was expecting from a yield standpoint.

“Moisture was running anywhere from 20 percent to the upper 30s as he was going through the field,” Wettstein said.

Bill Roth manages the Brandt Gridley location and says his area went about a month with no rain and that hurt the corn.

“We are probably not going to have the bumper crop we thought we were going to. There will be some areas that will be very good and there will be some that won’t be as good as we thought.”

Roth says a few fields near Gridley have been harvested but he anticipates the majority of growers heading out to the field after Labor Day next week. When it comes to soybeans, the late group 2 plants started to turn a week to 10 days ago, so it will be a couple of weeks before bean harvest. The later bean varieties haven’t even turned yet in many locations.

Gridley finally caught an inch of rain two weeks ago and received about a half inch the following week. Roth expects that to help the later beans.

“Hopefully that will bode well for giving us a good bean crop,” Roth adds.