I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

As you drive around our part of farm country in northern Indiana, there are fewer and fewer fields left to harvest. Generally, the weather has been pretty good with no major wind, rain, or snow events. It appears the bottleneck of harvest is over as basis at the elevators is beginning to come up a little.

We completed all the fieldwork that we wanted to do. We probably should have done some drainage work, but it was simply time for a break. We ‘closed’ for the holiday weekend. However, we had a crew come in and cut trees from some fence lines.

This week, Matt has been given the keys to the excavator and work has been done cleaning up fencerows and ditch banks.

My time has been spent in the office. Yield logs were reviewed and final field averages determined. Corn came in better than expected. Most, if not all fields, were above our historical averages. A couple of fields set new yield records. Soybeans had a couple of standouts (our best yields continue to be early maturity planted early), but most yields were just good.

With the price decline, it appears there are some shallow losses to claim on one of the crop insurance private party products. Increases in yield did not make up for the decline in price.

I’ve also begun planning for 2024. Seed selection and herbicide plans top the list. Yield data continues to be difficult to find and we are told to ‘trust the salesman’. Seed corn prices have gone up, soybean seed are pretty much unchanged, and herbicide prices are way down. I know many seed programs come out in August and operators place orders at that time. We didn’t get that done this year, but our dealers say they have us covered. I guess we will find out how well they have us covered when I turn in my first draft order on Friday!