Farmers Face Long Lines At Grain Elevators

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Updated: 6:41 PM Nov 19, 2009 Farmers Face Long Lines At Grain Elevators Grand Island As farmers play catch-up, long lines at the elevator are slowing harvest even further. Posted: 6:04 PM Nov 19, 2009 Reporter: Sara Geake Email Address: sara.geake@1011Now.com

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Sunny skies have created a race from the fields to the elevator for many Nebraska farmers.

According to the Department of Agriculture, wet weather has put harvest about three weeks behind.

Farmers are playing catch-up, trying to get the remaining half of the state's corn crop out of the fields and to the elevator.

Long lines at the elevator are slowing down farmers like Leo Mettenbrink.

"[Thursday] morning there was a line all the way past the railroad tracks," he said.

But as farmers wait their turn, there's no down time for those working at the Aurora's Cooperative's Grand Island terminal.

"When you're running the scale, no, you've got trucks coming in and out all the time," said Scott Hart, operations supervisor at the terminal. "We had 18 trucks here in line and within a half hour after we opened we had them on Shady Bend Road both ways. Cops were here."

Most of the corn coming in is wet. That means farmers are facing drying costs and they're having to bring in their grain earlier in the day so staff at the co-op can dry it.

"We're drying 24 hours a day, shutting off early just like all the other elevators," said Hart.

"They shut it off at 2:00 p.m., the wetter corn," said Mettenbrink.

Mettenbrink says with about 150 acres of corn left, he hopes to be done with harvest next week.

But the lines at the elevator are making a late harvest even slower.

"It did today," he said.

Hart says this week people have been parking at the co-op at night to get in line for the next day.

Most of the crop coming in is corn, but according to the USDA three percent of Nebraska's soybean crop is still in the fields.

Sorghum is only slightly behind last year.

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