Brought to you by WBIW News and Network Indiana
Last updated on Monday, November 11, 2013
(UNDATED) - Last summer a drought left many fields producing just a fraction of their normal corn and soybean crops.
This summer the weather cooperated and now Hoosier farmers are bringing in one of the largest corn crops in the state's history.
Purdue Agricultural Economist Chris Hurt says that when the harvest is over he anticipates Indiana's farmers will have collected a near record 1-billion bushels of corn and a near normal 250-million bushels of soybeans.
The big harvest though is creating a lot of pressure on grain storage around the state. Hurt says last year only one third of the 1.3 billion bushels of storage was used.
This year those same storage centers are filling up, but the storage issue does not appear to be as intense locally as it is in other parts of the state.
Farm officials in the area say some farmers have had to slow down their harvest because of a shortage of on farm storage of the big crop.
Some of the crops are still in the field because they don't have the storage space, said Darla Norris at the Farm Service Agency. They are leaving it in the field until they can move what they have already harvested to market.
The Farm Service office of USDA handles requests by farmers for loans for storage facilities. And they are getting some requests for those.
With November here, most farmers are looking to wrap up the harvest, but the lack of storage is not the only issue they are facing. With the rain and cool weather a lot of what is in the fields it too wet to bring in.
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