By Emmy Powell
Communications Specialist

Corn farmers have made it through harvest with a good crop, but many in Central Texas are challenged with finding storage.

Grain bins and elevators in the area are full, forcing farmers to wait to finish harvesting or find alternative storage plans.

“There are a few combines still running when they can. This is a good situation to have when you run out of storage. That means you’re having a good crop,” Greg Westerfeld, a farmer in McGregor, told the Texas Farm Bureau Radio Network.

With above average yields for most farmers, corn is piling up across McLennan County and the surrounding area.

And some, like Westerfeld, are storing the crop on the ground. Others are leaving the crop in the field for a while longer.

“Corn is a crop that you can leave in the field for a while. You can kind of store it on the stalk. We’ve been through this before, but it is one of the crops that people don’t mind leaving out in the field,” Westerfeld said. “It’s one of the crops that you don’t get as worried about, unless you get a big storm or something. But I know that farmers, myself included, would rather have it in the bin, and that’s the best place for it. But we’re just faced with this situation this year.”

Westerfeld’s personal storage is at capacity, holding 120,000 bushels of corn. But he hauls some of his corn to a grain facility in Falls County, where they have been forced to put the corn on the ground.

“The yield was good. It was probably one of the best I’ve had. My corn yielded 134 bushels per acre,” he said.

Westerfeld has been farming since 1991. He said this year was close to being the best crop he’s had thanks to the early spring rains.

And like farmers and ranchers across the state, he remains hopeful for the weather pattern to change this fall and bring much-needed rain to help restore the drought-stricken land.