corn-12-11-19

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All of Iowa’s districts have now reported at least 90% of their corn harvested. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, last week farmers had 4.5 days suitable for fieldwork. The moisture content of field corn being harvested for grain was 19 percent. In a recent visit to Washington, Secretary of Agriculture of Iowa Mike Naig explained the storage and drying issues farmers faced this fall, “Storage was full within the state, we just went through it very quickly. The last 10 days of October into the first part of November was such a pull on the system that it just turned it completely over. We heard from several propane distributors that said they did two and three times their normal volume in those 10 days. Well, normally you’ve got a rolling start to harvest. Right? Somebody gets started early and we kind of, parts of the state kind of roll. Not this year, it was like we all started at once and it was all wet, it all needed to be dried, and then it got cold.” Overall Iowa’s corn harvest was two weeks behind last year and the five-year average.