Farmers here in the southeast are taking advantage of warm, windy November weather to finish the corn harvest. Ed Peters of Henervic Farms, west of Steinbach, says they hope to finish up by the weekend. Speaking from his combine Monday, Peters noted fields are still muddy but are getting better.

Ed Peters"The fields are wet although equipment nowadays, with tracks on your combine, does mitigate some of those big ruts. We, on our farm, have decided we don't drive on the field anymore with grain carts and such. We either try to load onto the road over a ditch or those kinds of things, which leaves the fields in better shape.

Peters says corn yields have been outstanding, among the best they've ever had.

"The summer had so many heat units that the corn fully matured and we're harvesting a very good crop."

As for the ruts being left behind by the wet harvest season, Peters says it will be tough to get some of those fields ready for next spring.

"I think it'll be hard although, if you would have asked me a week ago, it would have been harder. The weather that we are having right now is giving us some optimism that maybe we'll get some of our field work done this fall yet. But we have not worked any of our corn land. Some of our fields will have ruts, but I think we can clean those up and, if we can't get them this fall then, if the spring weather is decent, we can hopefully do that then."