PORTLAND, N.D. (DTN) -- Mother Nature was not very motherly toward Brad Thykeson's farm this growing season.

Like others across the country who endured a crop year full of wild weather, Thykeson, a corn, soybean and wheat farmer, saw his crops struggle to thrive under the burden of too much moisture.

Spring featured rains every few days, which delayed planting and left the soils of Thykeson's Portland, N.D., fields saturated. Then in late June the region saw 9 inches of rain in just about a two-week period, drowning out some crops.

Over the winter, Thykeson planned to plant 50% of his acres to soybeans, 35% to corn and 15% to wheat.

In the face of extreme moisture during the planting season, he was forced to alter his original plan. Roughly 60% of his acres were planted to soybeans, 20% to corn, 10% to wheat and an additional 10% were not planted at all. He utilized the prevented planting option under crop insurance on that last 10%.

This was not what the Steele County farmer had in mind when he deciding how to divide up his acres.

"It was just one of those things that we just got too much rain this spring, we had to shift some acres around and all three crops were affected by all of this," Thykeson said.

Wheat yields were fair and protein levels good on the east-central North Dakota farm. Most of the wheat that was planted early yielded 40 to 50 bushels per acre. The field that was planted last produced only 17 bpa.

Wheat acres faced disease issues this year because of all the moisture. Thykeson, who farms with his son Greg and Ross, moved away from wheat and other small grains in recent years as continuing wet weather made it difficult to grow high yielding, disease-free wheat.

The wet weather also had a negative effect on the Thykeson's soybean crop.

While they still have some of their soybeans left to harvest, the farm yield will be below average this year. Their better yielding fields were those planted on sandier soils. The sand allowed the water to move through and not sit and pond, which led to lower yields in heavier soils, Thykeson said.

"I would guess our soybean yield will be around 30 bpa this year," Thykeson said.

The Thykesons were busy harvesting their first field of corn on Oct. 13. Ross, Brad's younger son and designated combine operator, said he hoped their corn yields came in average to slightly above average after the wet growing season they suffered through this year.

"The moisture is good, well under 20%, and I have seen the yield monitor range from 120 (bpa) to 170," said Ross, while operating a Case IH combine. "I think our farm corn yield is going to be around 125, which is maybe a little above average for us."

Overall, Brad Thykeson is generally pleased with his crop yields, considering all the weather challenges. He is even more positive about the 2012 crop year as the second half of the 2011 growing season unveiled something not seen for a while -- a long stretch of dry weather.

"We got an inch of rain on Sunday (Oct. 9) and that was the first significant amount we had had in a quite some time," he said. "Hopefully this is an indication that 2012 will be less extreme and not some(thing) bad like drought."

The Thykesons will continue to work on tiling their land a few hundred acres at a time and tinker with variable rate fertilizer.

Another change is also coming to their lives in the form of another generation of Thykesons. Greg's wife is expecting their first child in February (Brad's first grandchild) and this baby will make four generations of the family on the farm. Brad's father, Truman, is retired but still helps out on the farm in the shop.

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Each year DTN finds several growers with different crop mix plans to feature in our Planting Choices series. We visit these producers at planting time, during the growing season and at harvest to see how the year treats them. This is the third article for this year's profile of Brad Thykeson.

Russ Quinn can be reached at russ.quinn@telventdtn.com

(CZ/ES)

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