By Richard Oswald
DTN Special Correspondent

View From the Cab farmer Marcus Hess (left) expects his harvest to last a few more weeks, while Matt Wolle says that, barring breakdowns, he should be finished harvesting his corn by Sunday. (DTN file photo)

LANGDON, Mo. (DTN) -- Everyone likes a happy ending. So it is for View From the Cab farmer Matt Wolle of St James, Minn. After making the comment last week that the fun had gone out of this wet harvest, Matt said harvest fun is back with lower moisture readings in his corn.

Matt told DTN on Monday, "Barring a Greek tragedy of the combine blowing up or the blades coming off the drier fan, we should be done with corn harvest by this Sunday."

According to Matt, there isn't a soybean field left to harvest in his area, but he's heard that a few miles to the north some unharvested beans remain due to wet field conditions.

The soybean story is much the same for Matt's counterpart from Bushnell, Ill., Marcus Hess. Marcus confirmed that most, if not all, of the soybean fields he saw on the train ride from Bushnell to his second home in Chicago, have been cut. "Ninety-nine percent of the beans appear to be out. There are just a handful of wet spots left," Marcus said.

But while Matt looks to the short rows of corn harvest, Marcus and his father, Steve, expect theirs will last a few weeks more. "We're rolling along about as good as we could hope with about 800 acres left," Marcus said.

While some of Matt's corn is finally testing in the teens in Minnesota, the corn in Marcus' Illinois fields remains well into the 20s. Marcus hopes that the tail end of harvest will offer grain dry enough to deliver direct to elevators, something that would save both time and expensive propane.

"Everything is still going through the dryer. It shuts off at 4 or 5 in the morning. We usually have one to two thousand bushels of corn in wagons that we use to start it up again at 5:30. That corn is still drying at 8:00 when picking resumes," Marcus said.

While a storm system early this week halted field work in much of Illinois, harvest was roaring ahead in Minnesota where Matt was pondering a patch of refuge corn on one of his river-bottom fields. The combine operator, Matt's father, John, told Matt the field was so bad he would have to pick it from one direction. In order to do that, the combine has to return to the end of the field before starting another new pass.

When Matt's Crows Hybrids agronomist stopped by that day, Matt suggested they should check the field out. What they found was that the plant roots had been damaged by rootworm feeding. An adjacent 99-day hybrid containing stacked traits was still standing well.

Matt said differences between hybrids are apparent in more ways than one. Some hybrids with tough stalks work the combine harder than others. He noted that earlier in the week after finishing a field of corn, the next field planted to a rival seed made it seem as though "the heavens opened up." The combine just seemed to run better.

Anhydrous ammonia application is moving ahead on the Hess farm. Anytime someone is free, they spend an hour or two knifing in ammonia. That was Marcus' job over the weekend. But a connecting pin on the transport wheels worked loose, damaging the 16-knife applicator. A 12-knife rig was substituted. What seemed like a Greek tragedy for Marcus actually turned out well when light rain began to fall. "It got pretty slick, but with the shorter toolbar on our 300-horse tractor, I was actually able to run another hour and a half," Marcus said.

According to DTN Ag Meteorologist Bryce Anderson, fieldwork in Illinois will remain slow. "It's a have and have-not world with our two featured producers. Matt Wolle's harvest chances look good for this week thanks to temperatures running about 10 degrees above normal during the day and very little precipitation. But, Marcus Hess's place is squarely in the target area for rainfall totaling around three inches this week, so I don't look for Marcus to make much if any headway on harvest," Anderson said.

The power of grain markets in the face of this prolonged harvest has been surprising.

Both View From the Cab farmers have continued making modest sales. Matt said his most recent soybeans sales are not based on timing but because rising markets tripped his price trigger. Matt says he'd be mad at himself for not selling if the market went down, but right now he feels the soybean market doesn't offer enough carry to justify aggressive sales.

Holding too much cash grain makes Marcus nervous given uncertainty about the value of the U.S. dollar. With $4 corn and steady input costs, he can lock in a profit. He'll continue to make sales in small increments. He thinks one reason prices remain strong is that people are looking for a safe haven for their money in commodities. But sometimes the reasons why markets perform as they do aren't readily apparent, and he quoted a well-respected market adviser who once said "The markets are smarter than any of us."

According to DTN's Darin Newsom, corn and soybean markets could remain in an uptrend, at least for awhile. "I'd call the structure of the corn market mixed. It looks like the corn could continue to rally, particularly given the influence of the outside markets. Soybeans have a more bullish market structure with the uptrend supported by the weak carry in the futures spreads (indicating a more bullish supply-and-demand situation). This should keep the market rallying through the short term, again with outside markets prompting additional buying interest," he said.

Richard Oswald can be reached at Richard.oswald@dtn.com.

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