Corn #harvest14 has begun

Here we go!!! #harvest14pic.twitter.com/y1kWGofv4j

— matt bainbridge (@BainbridgeAG) September 29, 2014

It’s official, combines have been spotted slowly rolling across corn fields in South Dakota gathering what could be another record breaking crop in 2014. The evidence seen above is a tweet from Matt Bainbridge, a family farmer from Ethan.

The United States Department of Agriculture’s National Ag Statistics Service reported yesterday that as of Sunday, September 28^th, 2% of South Dakota’s corn crop had been harvested. With the cool summer the state experienced, row crops are taking longer than normal to reach maturity. The fiver-year average shows that farmers are typically 14% complete with corn harvest at this time. Regardless, conditions remain mostly good-excellent as the large crop awaits.

The most recent USDA-NASS estimates predict that SD farmers will collect around 814 million bushels this fall. If realized, this would slightly nudge last year’s record crop of 809 million bushels, but farmers would do so on 300,000 less acres. Corn yields, aka bushels per acre, are expected to increase to 148 this fall, 10 more than in 2013.

“Farmers continue to prove that they are able to meet the world’s growing demands for food, feed, fuel and fiber year after year. And this year our growers did so on significantly less land,” said South Dakota Corn Utilization Council president, Mark Gross. “It goes to show just how beneficial the investments farmers have made in precision technology, improved farming practices and advanced seed genetics have been.”

Follow along this harvest on Twitter with the hashtag: #harvest14