A unique crop year has resulted in farmers looking to an earlier than expected harvest season.

Landus Cooperative Field Agronomist Zach Minnihan says most corn hybrids mature around 2,800-heat-degree-units and the majority are sitting at 2,500-degrees. “We’re looking at a Labor Day Weekend time frame when most of our 110-, 111-, 112-day (corn) are going to basically be mature. We are flying through this corn crop’s life. So we’re looking at about a 7-10 day earlier harvest time, just from kind of the way the growing degree days shapes up on the calendar day.”

Minnihan points out the way this year has gone for corn and soybean has been unlike any other typical year.

“So planting two weeks behind, tasseling three days earlier and now harvesting estimate 7-10 days earlier. Every year is different, but I haven’t seen one like quite this dramatic sways from one side to the other from being behind, caught up and now ahead.”

Minnihan adds that crop disease hasn’t had too much of an impact this year, though he has seen some Northern Corn Leaf Blight and Frogeye Leaf Spot on soybeans. He says during this past week, Greene County saw three-to-four-inches of rainfall, but that any additional rainfall moving forward won’t have any impact on corn or soybeans as we approach an early harvest.