Some harvest is happening in South Dakota, but as of the week of September 22nd, it was just barely underway. There’s a wide diversity of crop and field conditions influencing expected yields, according to Anthony Bly, an extension soils field specialist at South Dakota State University.
“From far too dry to extremely too wet, somewhere in between, there's going to be some really good soybean yields,” Bly told the South Dakota Soybean Network.
In areas where weather, crop maturity and dry-down allow it, at least some soybeans have already been harvested. Year by year, the harvest is happening earlier, said Bly, but this year is an outlier by a couple of weeks.
“Typically, the main harvest period in South Dakota is that first and second week of October,” he explained. “You know, we had a really good warm, humid year. We're slightly ahead on heat units, especially when we talk about other crops, but that just really pushed things along very well. And we're nowhere near being in full harvest mode here. It's just begun.”
As in most years, there are also disease issues negatively affecting soybean yields, but Bly says overall, South Dakota can expect a good harvest.
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