Indiana farmers have been charging hard through harvest for weeks now with minimal interruptions, and in west-central Indiana that remains the case even after some widespread rains this week.

“We had a couple rain showers here just on and off this week,” Blake Russell explained, “very low impact. Maybe guys had to be done early for the day, but very minimal impact. We were able to get right in the next day in most places.”

Russell is a Technical Agronomist in West Central Indiana for Channel Seeds. Corn and soybean harvest progress is still well ahead of the five-year average pace, at 44 percent complete on corn and 57 percent on soybeans.

In Russell’s Benton, Boone, Clinton, Hendricks, Montgomery, Warren and Fountain County area harvest might be better than the state numbers.

“I think for soybeans we may be just a little farther along than that. We’ve got a lot of guys that’ll probably finish up our soybeans this week if they’re not already, but yeah, I think for an overall perspective corn and soybeans are right on pace or maybe just a little bit ahead.”

He said farmers should be very happy with what the yield monitors are showing.

“Yeah, yields have been very good. We’ve had some great yields depending on locations. A couple of places had a little bit of drought or a little bit of stress from different diseases, but overall yields in both corn and soybeans have been very good and our growers have met or exceeded expectations for this year.”

Tar spot has been talked about at length this season, and Russell said it was indeed widespread in his area. But how did the corn crop handle the disease?

“It just kind of depends on the management and the situation. We have a lot of guys that are very proactive and spray fungicide at least once. Where we’re seeing that have a good impact we’re seeing anything from over 20 to 40 bushels different from guys that did spray versus those who did not. So, it didn’t have a huge impact in our area, and also we’re dealing with some crown rots and stalk rot and anthracnose, so it’s definitely been a year where it’s been challenging from a disease standpoint. But being able to manage those appropriately, we’ve tried our best and we’re learning about that as we continue on for this season and next year.”

Hear more in the full HAT and Channel Seeds growing season update: