Brandon area farmers preparing for bumper harvest - Trade war will complicate final numbers

A wetter-than-normal summer is leading to a potential solid harvest this year in-and-around the Brandon and Valley Springs area.

Matt Dux of the National Weather Service in Sioux Falls said this year’s July is in the Top 15 on record. For June, July and August, Dux said the entire region saw above normal precipitation.

“We did have wetter-than-normal summer months,” Dux said. “That probably will help contribute to some higher yields.”

Rain hitting the area is in contrast to last year’s drier summer. Brandon and Valley Springs received about 20 inches of rain the weekend of June 19, 2024. From that point on, it basically didn’t rain again until November.

“But actually, it was a really good yield last year considering that factor,” said Brandon CHS (Cooperative Harvest States) General Manager Ben Lyden. “We got three months of rain in a weekend. That doesn’t really work too good for some locations.”

This year, Lyden and area farmers are hopeful for even more. Doug Ode farms about 1,000 acres of corn and alfalfa. He said he’s expecting at least 30 bushels to the acre more than last year.

Ode said he’s attributing that to the rain this summer.

“We got a little over 10 inches of rain in July, and usually that never happens,” he said.

Valley Springs Farmers Co-Op General Manager, Trent Hartog agreed.

“That rain helped out a lot,” he said. “This year is going to be way better than last year.”

Although the corn harvest hasn’t started yet this fall, fields surrounding the area have been busy with combine harvesters working soybean fields. That effort will soon turn to corn.

Lyden said the success of this year’s yield depends upon where you’re located in the state. He said some areas – like northeast South Dakota like Sisseton and Watertown – got too much rain. To the west near the Missouri River, Lyden said they didn’t get enough precipitation at the right times.

“But in general, I’d say the yields are significantly better than the last couple of years,” he said.

He said he witnessed an indicator in early August. After buying sweet corn, he said he had a hard time fitting it in the pan to cook.

“I’ve never seen it so big,” he said. “That’s a pretty good barometer, the bigger cob and good pollination. I think that’s what’s going to show up here for a really good harvest.”

Although yields look to be strong, Lyden said farmers will have to navigate the current China/U.S. trade war. China is currently purchasing their soybeans from South America.

Historically, Lyden said, China purchased those soybeans from the United States.

“It obviously impacts the local farmer because when you take a buyer like China out of the market, there’s less destinations for the crop to go to,” he said. “So it’s not helpful when you lose a destination. That’s a problem from a demand perspective.”

He said tariffs are also impacting all the input costs, like seed, fertilizer and labor. Because of the tariffs, those input costs have risen for producers.

“That’s not helping,” he said. “They’ve lost a destination for their product, and their costs have all increased. So I’d say in general, it hasn’t been a positive year for farmers on that side.”

But, Lyden said, this year’s yield will make up for some of that loss.

“That’s what they’re going to hang their hat on,” he said. “They’re probably going to have the biggest crop they’ve ever had.”

According to the USDA National Agriculture Statistics Service, 2025 is expected to be the first billion-bushel year. Their pre-harvest forecast calls for 1.02 billion corn bushels harvested this season.

While the summer rains seem to be a windfall for (DD) large-scale farming operations, it’s been a challenge for the 50-acre Cherry Rock Farms south of Brandon.

Cherry Rock is open during the summer months and features fresh produce such as cabbage, beets, cucumbers, onions, lettuce, carrots, peppers, tomatoes, sweet corn, and more.

“Overall, it’s been a fairly good year,” said co-owner Laura Patzer. “It was a significantly wetter growing season this year. A lot of our vegetables were just sitting in mud. We did have some loss because of that.”

The wet summer, along with battling weed pressure because of the rains, made it difficult this year. Cherry Rock is an organic farm and they don’t use herbicides or pesticides to reduce that weed pressure. 

But Patzer said they plan for it.

“We plant accordingly,” she said. “We try to do more successions and when we saw we were losing the battle with certain things, we tried to get more in the ground.”