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Snow Abruptly Ends Harvest in Area
If farmers throughout the area weren't done harvesting their crops before last Tuesday, they certainly are now.

That's according to area agronomist Greg Jones. He says the snowfall and wind of last week likely did cause plenty of damage to what was left in the fields. As of this week, the USDA's Crop Progress Report indicates this region still has 10 percent of the corn in the fields.

Jones tells WGIL it's still possible what remained of the crop could have been harvested, but why waste time now.

"Certainly (corn is) still retrieveable," Jones said. "But in terms of being able to pick it now, (the weather) makes it very difficult, because you have that snow there that, if it's a lodged plant, obviously, depending on when it falls over, it could get covered up with snow. So the plants that are lodged now will probably freeze to the ground if they touch the ground. So, you can't really get the combine snouts under there and pick that up very effectively, and you'll wind up with some real difficulty."

Jones says snow can cause damage to combines, too, which he says obviously is also not a good thing.

He says it's been a long, long time since any portion of the corn crop has remained in the fields this long, but that given the weather conditions from start to finish, the crop this season in terms of yields has been, in his words, a pleasant surprise.
12 16 09 by Newsroom
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