MONROE — An especially rainy September and October have put fall harvest further behind schedule. 

“Harvest is going slow. Very slow,” said Jackie McCarville, agriculture agent at University of Wisconsin-Extension Green County. “Really we need some dry weather.”

One problem with the delay is the quality of corn silage — when all but several inches of the corn stalk is collected for cattle feed.

Ben Huber, president of the Green County Farm Bureau, explained that the longer the stalk is out in the field, the more it matures and dries out. 

This might seem counterintuitive, since it’s wet ground that is keeping the corn there to mature in the first place, and it’s true that some of that moisture in the air can help replace some of what’s been lost, but Huber said it’s no substitute, and that’s not good for cows.

“When silage is on the drier side (it’s more difficult for cows) to break down the plant that they’re eating is more difficult,” Huber said. 

He isn’t really worried yet about the heavy rain so far this fall, but said it will be a concern if conditions continue. 

“We don’t really need any more than what we’ve already got,” Huber said of the rain and wet weather. He also noted that these conditions were “fairly unprecedented” all across the state for this time of year. 

They are, however, an echo of what was seen in the spring. 

“As wet as we are now, we were equally as wet early in the spring when we should have been planting,” he said. That put everything two to three weeks behind schedule from the outset, despite having a fairly average growing season.

Doug Rebout, president of the Wisconsin Corn Growers Association, is a farmer in Janesville and said he hasn’t been out in the fields yet. He said it’s the first time he’s seen weather like this during harvest time  in his many years of farming. 

“As of right now we’re three weeks behind,” Rebout said. “If this continues then we could run into problems.” 

And it isn’t as though farmers could immediately go out and harvest when the rain stops. 

Besides figuring out where to fill trucks, if you go into wet fields “you’re causing a lot more compaction in the fields, which isn’t good for next year,” he said. 

“We’ll be going and just trying to make the best of it wherever we can,” said Rebout. 

Once harvest finally gets rolling, farmers out and about are going to need some extra tolerance from other drivers.

“We are going to be on the roads a lot more at different times of the day,” Rebout said. That may include leaving mud around and instances of blocking traffic when they can’t load trucks in the fields. Farmers will be stressed out, he said, trying to do the best they can and to not cause problems for others around them.

“All I ask is for people to be patient and understanding of us,” he said.  “We understand that other people have places to go and things to do too.”