Harvest Progress Captured On Smartphone Cameras.

Oct 23, 2014

Video: Harvest Progress Captured on Smartphone Cameras.

By Joe Dales, Farms.com

This is an important time of year for farmers, the investment in the crop is still out in the field and winter is quickly approaching. There is no better feeling than riding in a combine, harvesting a high yield field and getting the grain off and into the grain cart or truck.

This year the soybean and corn harvest is underway, but in many areas is weeks away from finishing up because of the wet fall weather. According to the last USDA Crop Progress report, harvest is well behind the five year average, but most farmers already know this. http://www.farms.com/news/usda-crop-progress-report-harvest-behind-average-83050.aspx.

One new trend that is very noticable to anyone on Twitter or Instagram is that while out in the field, and with a smart phone in hand, farmers have made sure to document their hard work and progress posting photos sharing on social media using the hashtag #harvest14. You can see the Farms.com Twitter account at www.twitter.com/FarmsNews

We have selected some of our favorite photos and assembled them into a video montage. Here is a look at some of the best #harvest14 photos over last weekend:

The farmer photographers have also captured their more difficult days when the fields were wet which caused situations of stuck tractors and combines.

Everything is leading up to many farmers realizing record yields. In the October 10^th USDA Reports, it is projected that farmers are set to grow a record 14.475 billion bushels of corn, up less than 1% from September, with an average yield of 174.2 bushels per acre. The harvested acreage is set at 83.097 million acres. For soybeans 3.927 billion bushels are projected, slightly more than last month, with an average yield of 47.1 bushels per acre. The harvested acreage of soybeans is estimated at 83.403 million acres.

If realized, these would be new all-time high average yields and new state records in soybeans for Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Ohio, and South Dakota. USDA also lowered harvested acreage estimates by small amounts over previous reports. http://www.farms.com/ag-industry-news/usda-crop-production-and-wasde-reports-released-719.aspx

Good luck to everyone with this year's harvest.

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