Farmers Say Harvest Turned Out Better Than Expected - WLNS TV 6 Lansing - Jackson | Your Local News Leader

This summer, we heard about how the drought would devastate crop harvests this fall, but surprisingly, farmers are seeing better yields of corn and soybean than expected.

Jake Wamhoff remembers worrying about how his crops would fare during the summer drought.

"It was very depressing. In fact, I just did not even want to go out and look at the fields 'cause I knew the corn was all rolled up from the previous day and the next day was gonna be 100 degrees, and still no rain," said Wamhoff.

But it turns out, farmers are pleasantly surprised by some crop yields this fall. Many corn and soybean crops are doing better than farmers predicted.

"The yield's not being as bad, farmers are pretty happy. If we get mother nature to cooperate with us and not rain every other day, hopefully we can get this harvest done in the next three or four weeks," said Ken Brown, the owner of Mason Elevator.

Wamhoff says thanks to plant breeding, crops are more resilient than they've ever been. Kirk Thelen, professor of crop sciences at Michigan State, confirms farmers can expect to see more water-efficient corn hybrids for years to come.

"There's been a pretty steady genetic advancement that we can measure in terms of better yields across the country. So they can probably expect that to continue for the foreseeable future," said Thelen.

Corn and soybean harvests should be ending around mid-November. The yields are still down about twenty percent from last year, but farmers say that's still better than they originally expected out of this harvest.