La Salle County 2024 harvest report: Timely rains led to good yields

The 2024 harvest report, with input from La Salle County farmers, is published annually at the conclusion of the growing season.

The following report covers the growing season and is provided with assistance from the La Salle County Farm Bureau.

David Hall, Serena: Another year is in the books. It’s interesting to look back at the roller coaster of weather as the year closes out. Warm and dry early, then cold and wet, then “will it, won’t it” for rain chances throughout the summer. Our immediate area received very timely rains in general, and our yields came out above average. Always thankful, but especially so with the depressed crop prices throughout the year. We are seeing markets rebound modestly in January, with an opportunity to sell any unpriced crop at better than harvest prices. Hopefully the rally can continue into spring. Thank you all for reading, and God bless!

David Myer, Marseilles: The 2024 crop year was interesting to say the least. Planting got an early start and continued for over six weeks. Did we learn anything from that? I’m not sure. It seems like the balance of the growing season determines the outcome. Crops did well last year, but as the Department of Agriculture just reported, yields didn’t reach what many had thought. Timely and/or scattered local showers made a huge difference. Market prices are much lower than in the past three years, and inputs are still high, so it’s a real squeeze. Looking forward to 2025, we need more soil moisture after the very dry fall we encountered. Prices rebounded a little after the latest crop report, but South America is growing more beans again, and China is the market for them. We have fallen out of place from the past with our exports. Maybe new faces in Washington will change some of that. We are very thankful for what we did produce and thank the La Salle County Facebook and Shaw Local for making these reports possible to all the faithful audience.

Ken Bernard, Grand Ridge: This past growing season was another one for the record books! I’m not going to go through the whole growing season, but it was interesting. I will just fill you in on the harvest season. It started a little quicker than we were thinking it would, but once we got started, it was a wonderful surprise on the yields, which were quite a bit better than I was thinking we would have. The biggest disappointment was the moisture of both corn and beans. Being too dry, I have never harvested this good of yields at 8% to 9% beans and 12.5% to 14% corn moistures this early in October. Usually, moistures at this level would indicate poor yields. The other thing this fall was the lack of rain days to do some maintenance and catch up on some rest. I think we went through fall with only about two days of light drizzles, which allowed us to go back to harvesting later that same day or maybe only knocked us out for a couple of hours in the morning. Harvest wrapped up before Halloween, and then the fall tillage got done along with the dry fertilizer and anhydrous ammonia being applied. Later in November, we did start to get some moisture, but right now we are still on the dry side of things. Drainage tiles are not running at all, and I have heard that a couple of wells are having trouble keeping up with usage. Grain prices have been lower than we wanted but have gotten a little bit better in the middle of January. Also, calving season has started here after the first of the year, and it’s going smoothly so far. Fingers crossed! I think I will leave you with this: Stay safe and be cautious driving this winter when things are snowy and slippery. Have a wonderful 2025.

Geoffrey Janssen, Rutland: This fall, things went very well in the southern tip of the county. Wind damage in the middle of July affected corn on some farms. Location determined a big part of how the corn did in my area. Where the storms didn’t affect it, the yields were very good. Soybeans overall yielded very well considering the dry August weather. With only one rain day this past fall, fieldwork continued without delay. Tillage and fall application of fertilizer was completed.

Ken Beck, Mendota: All I can say is last fall was fast and furious. We had great weather, good yields and things came out of the field very easily. Prices being what they were, at least it wasn’t a struggle.