Farmers ready to be done with bountiful harvest

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Late rains, July wind damage drug out process this year

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  • A combine rolls through a field east of Phillips last week as farmers work to finish up what most are describing as a good growing season in 2021. Wind damage from a July 9 storm, as well as some late October and early November rains, prolonged this year’s harvest.
    A combine rolls through a field east of Phillips last week as farmers work to finish up what most are describing as a good growing season in 2021. Wind damage from a July 9 storm, as well as some late October and early November rains, prolonged this year’s harvest.
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“It was a good harvest, but I’m glad I’m done.”
Those were the relieved words of Phillips area farmer John McDonald last week, who said what a lot of area farmers were thinking as the 2021 harvest comes to a close. Though corn and soybean yields were reportedly good throughout Hamilton County, some weather challenges in the past few weeks and wind-damaged corn in the southern parts of the county made it a prolonged harvest season for many.
“We had some wind damage, but not to the extent that they had in Giltner,” McDonald reported Thursday, just a couple of days after finishing this year’s harvest. “It was a very good corn year. I would say we’re at 85 to 90 percent done around here and in another week it will be pretty well taken care of. The wind hurt us, but all in all it was still a good year.”
Matthew Grosshans of Aurora reported that some of their farm ground south of Aurora toward Giltner took a hard hit in the July 9 windstorm, though overall he agreed that the 2021 growing season was productive, and profitable.

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