Latest News From Harvest

The USDA’s March all-orange forecast for the 2022-23 season is 2.62 million tons, up slightly from the previous forecast but down 25% from the 2021-22 final utilization. 

The reference to chestnuts, let alone roasted ones, will trigger few remembrances even though Chestnut trees once dominated Eastern forests comprising as much as half the hardwood in those woodlands.

Unlike reports of a Christmas tree shortage, the Real Christmas Tree Board, which is the checkoff for Christmas tree farmers, says growers from across the country have been able to meet the increasing demand.

Grain shipments on some railroads could stop as early as Wednesday, two days ahead of a possible rail strike. A rail stoppage is growing more likely as the country’s main rail unions remain at odds with rail companies.

A potential stoppage on the nation's railways this fall is spurring concern, even after President Biden signed an executive order Sunday to keep U.S. rail traffic on track and the collective bargaining process going.

In 2018, five states produced more than 1 billion pounds of pumpkins—about 40% of total U.S. production, USDA reports.

Another round of lemon harvest will begin soon in southern California.

Idaho has bounced back to a more normal potato crop this season from its bumper crop last year.

Members of the Ontario Berry Growers Association are the newest users of Croptracker, a traceability software for the agricultural industry.

Iowa Gov. Terry E. Branstad signed a proclamation that allows farmers to transport overweight loads of corn, soybeans, hay, straw, silage and stover. The proclamation is in effect from Sept. 25 to November 25.

The river is freezing about a month early because of the cold snap, slowing transportation down.

BNSF, which has come under scrutiny this year from the U.S. Surface Transportation Board over late grain deliveries, has told some oil shippers its network can’t accommodate more tank cars.

Rehabbing a stretch of railroad will open up grain-shipping opportunities for farmers who currently must use trucks to transport their grain to more distant railways.

Record crops and transportation bottlenecks are straining the nation’s grain storage system that it hasn’t seen in nearly a decade.

The Missouri Department of Transportation says private and for-hire motor carriers will be able to haul corn, soybeans and other grains at heavier than normal weights.

As U.S. farmers begin the biggest corn and soybean harvests ever, the bins at Elburn Cooperative Co. in Illinois remain almost empty. It simply costs too much to send Midwest crops by barge to New Orleans export terminals.

Minnesota farmers will face several challenges in shipping and storing what's expected to be the state's second largest corn crop in history.

Nebraska drivers and farmers are being reminded to be careful during harvest because large equipment and trucks will be entering and leaving fields.

Canadian National Railway Co. said the federal government should lower a grain shipment minimum because farmers haven’t been sending enough of the crop to allow the railroad to comply with the order.

Shipping companies probably will miss out on exports from the record U.S. grain harvest because the shale-oil boom is clogging up rail lines to ports.

Farmers in Mississippi's Delta region fear harvest efforts will be hampered by road closures and bridges that can't hold heavy trucks.

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp says farmers have been "tremendously patient" about rail delays, "but that patience is wearing thin."

The state now has the final piece of funding needed to rehab a stretch of railway that will open up grain-shipping opportunities for farmers in south-central South Dakota, officials announced this week.

Minnesota officials and propane suppliers say they're better prepared to avoid repeating the shortages that hit much of the Midwest last winter.

North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple opened a federal hearing in Fargo about rail service delays in the upper Plains by reading a letter from a grain elevator that said Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. was 525 cars behind in its service.

Container ships sailing across the northern Pacific are carrying more cargo and are setting course for British Columbia to avoid delays from a possible strike by U.S. West Coast longshoremen.

Gov. Mark Dayton is urging the federal government to step in on railroad delays hitting Minnesota grain farmers.

The ripening corn and soybean fields stretch for miles in every direction from Dennis Wentworth’s farm in Downs, Illinois.

A scale-tipping harvest, a lack of bin space from last year and a shortage of rail cars have some farmers, and some elevators, pouring wheat on the ground because there's no place to put it.

BNSF Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. struggled with "greater-than-normal" demand from shippers of coal, oil and Midwest crops, USDA said last week.

A bitter and occasionally violent two-year labor dispute at Northwest grain terminals ended with a tentative deal reached in the middle of the night.

Since farmers' profits are dropping this year alongside crop prices, bridge-infrastructure needs have come into sharper focus.

Rail congestion and large bounties of crops have some worried about grain storage space as South Dakota's harvest gets underway.

North Dakota's congressional delegation is pressing Canadian Pacific Railway to provide details of its backlog of grain shipments, saying farmers need detailed information with fall harvest fast approaching.