Fast harvest pleases northeast Iowa farmer

Irony came to mind when Jerry Dove discussed his 2024 season’s wet start and dry ending.

“We had a lot of water in the fields early in the season,” said Dove, in his 43rd year of farming.

He summarized this fall’s progress way ahead of his regular harvest schedule as convenient and sort of a relief.

“By and large, we are doing very well. We will get wrapped up this week,” said Dove, who credited the efficient harvest to his tight work partnership with his wife, Mary.

So far, they’ve hit corn yields from about 215 to 240 bushels per acre. Moisture was 16-18.5% further out in the field. Closer to their house, he noted it dropped and measured at 13.5%.

“The variability is amazing. There’s so much of it this year,” he said.

Soybean conditions were much the same as corn, he said.

Dove found quality and quantity differences in a few fields to be “head scratchers.”

That’s not atypical in his five decades of farming.

“Refined genetics developed in the last 15 years are phenomenal and result in higher yields and exceptional quality,” he said.

Dove said his farm participates in the same weed control trial as the Iowa State University Northeast Research and Demonstration Farm near Nashua, 30 miles straight north of his home farm.

The trial features alternating stretches of blue grass between crop rows.

“The goal is to get more weeds out and to make doing that easier,” Dove said.

The bold dark greenness of the bluegrass stands out among the vanilla-colored corn stalks.