For farmers with livestock, the next few weeks offer a window to put up good quality corn silage, but for custom harvest crews, that short window means that the race is on to chop, truck and pack next winter’s feed while conditions are favorable.

“This year’s quality has been excellent,” says Tim Lewman, Lewman Farms, Cummings, Kan., who was custom chopping a corn field just east of Winchester, Kan. on Tuesday. “It isn’t taking very many acres to fill a bag. We are seeing 20-to-25-ton (per) acre.”

With a week-long stretch of near triple digit temperatures, #Grow24 for the northeast Kansas and northwest Missouri corn crop has come to an end.

Most fields have reached black layer and farmers are eagerly awaiting 2024 harvest and enjoying the learning opportunities that come with the end of the growing season: field plot days.

In both northwest Missouri and northeast Kansas field day events are in full swing, signaling the end of the growing season and an opportunity to look back on the success of varieties, practices and equipment.

Just two of many field days held across the region over the past week, Grimes Farms Inc. and Nutrien Ag Solutions, Northeast Kansas hosted their annual field days to share both the season’s successes and failures.

LEARNING OPPORTUNITY: Nutrien Ag Solutions, Northeast Kansas, hosted area growers to highlight seed and input solutions that made a difference in #Grow24.

With #Grow24 coming to an end, this will be the last weekly update from northeast Kansas and northwest Missouri. Watch for the season-long recap with our weekly contributors, Alex Noll and Renee Fordyce in October.

Handke writes from Easton, Kan.