Millet, other crops hurting from hail

    Despite last week’s rain and recent hail, the millet harvest in Holyoke and Paoli is about finished, with beans also underway, and corn and beets planned to start in the coming weeks.
    A storm at the end of July dropped baseball-sized hail on parts of Phillips County, which Steve Young of CHS Grainland said affected the viability of some farmers’ crops.
    “It certainly had an impact on particular fields. Some of the millet fields were extremely reduced or wiped out,” he said.
    Young said that a number of warm, dry days helped speed up the millet harvest, which began at the end of August. He and Steve Bahnsen of Paoli Co-op estimated that about 90 percent of local millet had been harvested by the middle of last week.
    Although Bahnsen said July’s hail and the drought in the southern part of the county has had an impact on the quantity of crops received, he hasn’t seen an impact on millet quality.
    Jack’s Bean Company General Manager Tom Harmon said the local bean harvest is about half done. Farmers began harvesting around Labor Day weekend and plan to continue through early October.
    As with other crops, Harmon said Jack’s Bean is seeing a drop in quantity this year as a result of hail damage.
    “We had a lot of beans that didn’t get harvested this year because of the weather. A number of circles were completely hailed out.”
    Young and Bahnsen said the start of corn harvest is a week or two away, although they have seen a few loads of dryland corn. The crop saw a similar degree of damage from the hail. Sorghum is also expected to begin in a few weeks.
    The sugar beet harvest began Sept. 25 with the opening of the dump north of Holyoke. The beet dump near the state line will open Oct. 9. Les Watada of Western Sugar estimated that a few tons were lost to the hail.
    Rain in the middle of last week delayed harvesting for a few days, and Watada was careful to say that all harvesting efforts are weather-contingent.