Several weeks ago, at the height of the annual corn harvest in Crawford County, Dean Stites was looking forward and was optimistic about soybeans.
Stites, county agriculture agent for the K-State University Extension Service in Girard, thought at the time this year could be a bumper year for beans.
Now, with about 80 percent of the 2008 crop in the bins, Stites' optimism has proven true. And, the funny thing is, the crop probably shouldn't have come through as good as it's going to.
Then again, last year's crop shouldn't have been as good as it was, either, Stites said. Both years, wetter-than-average weather during the spring delayed soybean planting, in some cases until after the first of July.
That shouldn't have given the beans enough time to mature. It's just a fluke of the weather that held off freeze, with the addition of needed rainfall at just the right times, that made the harvest as good as it is, he said.
“Being forced to plant late two years in a row is a rarity,” Stites said. “Then, having a bumper crop two years in a row is almost unheard of.”
Producers Cooperative Elevator received so man loads of soybeans, the bins were full last week at its Agronomy Station north of Girard. Ned Johnson, grain merchandiser for the Co-op, said they'd taken in 582,700 bushels of soybeans by mid-afternoon Tuesday.
“I'm figuring we're going to fall somewhere between 650,000 and 700,000 bushels” by the end of harvest, Johnson said Monday. “We should see a lot of acres disappear between now and Thanksgiving.”
Last year, the elevator took in about 631,000 bushels in the fall soybean harvest. That's the best harvest since 2004, when Producers Co-op received 724,000 bushels, he said.
But that number could be slightly deceiving. He believes a significant portion of that 2004 harvest came from producers who might otherwise have gone to other elevators, but couldn't when those other locations got full.
Soybeans closed Monday with a cash price of $8.04. The price dropped slightly to $8.02 by mid-afternoon Tuesday, but January soybean futures were at $8.82 per bushel Tuesday afternoon.
“That's better than it was a couple of days ago,” Johnson said.
Average yields for southeastern Kansas are around 25 bushels to the acre. Reports of soybean yields in the 40s are not uncommon this year, Johnson said, with scattered reports of 50 bushels to the acre or better in some locations. And that's good news for economically strapped producers, he said.
“This will definitely help,” Johnson said. “They've got some bushels to sell.
“I'm sure they're happy with their yields, but we'd still like to see the prices better. Hopefully, we've seen the worst (of the pricing fluctuations), but we haven't seen any clear-cut indication of that.”