Hunt the Harvest

This weather is really making it hard to come to work! The grey sky look we’ve started the week with, and the chilly conditions make excellent weather to hunt in –if you’re lucky enough! Colder weather has deer shifting their food preferences around. Similar to how people suddenly prefer soups and chili once the mercury drops, those same alfalfa fields sizeable herds were grazing in are now secondary to adjacent row crops, especially carbohydrate-rich corn. But standing corn can be very tough to hunt sometimes. So I thought I’d take a look at the latest harvest reports to check in with our progress.

According to the Iowa Corn Growers Association, “Dry and windy weather last week accelerated crop dry down and provided the opportunity to harvest nearly half of Iowa’s soybean acres.  The moisture content of the corn left to harvest throughout the state fell 4% from previous week to an average of 20%, with the corn currently being harvested running 18% moisture content. 10% of the corn crop is experiencing moderate to heavy ear droppage compared to 5% normally. Almost 50% of Iowa’s soybean crop was harvested last week, with soybean harvest jumping to 70% complete, still behind last year’s 74% but 5 days ahead of the average pace."  Source: IDALS Press Release, October 11, 2011.

As of today, 45% of corn is harvested and 87% of soy beans are out. Farmers are focusing on the soy bean fields right now to try and finish the harvest with the right moisture content in the seeds. So be patient if you’re hunting setup overlooks a corn field, it might be a few weeks. Perhaps switch your setup to a fresh-picked bean field as the deer rush out to snag the easy snacks left behind by the harvest. But leave that stand on the cornfield edge, because the latest crop report suggests you’re sitting on a corn-kernel gold mine! This year’s weather conditions appear to have caused twice as much ear droppage. This corn that falls off the stalks and onto the Iowa dirt typically are not harvested -bad news for farmers, but great news for hunters. Cornfields should become an excellent, reliable food source as the season wears on.

To be successful, be observant and adaptable like the quarry we’re chasing. Good luck out there, and if you’d like to keep tabs on the Iowa crop harvest click here.