KBIA

Storms Affect Corn Harvest COLUMBIA, MO (KBIA) - This year's corn crop season started late and is ending later because of the large amounts of rainfall caused by Hurricane Gustav and Ike in the past two weeks. Hartsburg farmer Terry Hilgebick (hil-GU-bick) says farmers normally would be almost half way done with the corn harvest. But because of the mud and small ponds throughout the corn fields, farmers are unable to start harvesting.
Hilgebick says because the hours of daylight are getting shorter, farmers are worried about getting the harvesting done.

You can get a lot more done in a day in September than you can in November, and we have lost half of September, so that compresses our harvest window more than usual. If we have a dry fall from this point out, I would think harvest would go fairly timely still.

Hilgebick says not only has the harvest been pushed back this year, but also large amounts of rain in the spring delayed planting. He says both occurrences resulted in a less than ideal growing season. © Copyright 2009, KBIA