GRAFTON, N.D. - Though it's too soon to be sure, a combination of excellent yields, poor yields and impossible-to-harvest acres across eastern North Dakota and western Minnesota appears to have produced a roughly average dry bean harvest overall.
It's also led to talk that some farmers with poor yields and drowned-out fields will cut back sharply on their dry bean acreage in 2017, unless prices for the crop improve significantly.
One recently unveiled contract offers to buy 2017 dry beans at $25 per hundredweight, says Tom Kennelly, a Grafton, N.D., farmer and president of the Northarvest Bean Growers Association.
"There's no way at $25 I'd even mess with it anymore," says Kennelly, who had dry bean fields that suffered from the heavy and repeated rains that hit much of northeast North Dakota this growing season.
Unless dry bean prices improve, some dry bean farmers will switch to crops that pose less of a production risk, he says.
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Tim Courneya, the association's executive vice president, also thinks some weather-scarred dry bean growers might switch unless prices improve.
Those growers are saying, "The market will have to buy my attention to plant them (dry beans)," Courneya says.
North Dakota leads the nation in dry bean production. Minnesota typically ranks among the top five, with production concentrated in the northwest part of the state. Dry beans, also known as edible beans, are beans that have been dried for future use; the many varieties include pinto, kidney, navy and black.
Dry beans do best with adequate, but not excessive, moisture, and a dry harvest - neither of which happened this year in parts of northern North Dakota.
Big variation
Dry bean yields, like those of other crops, often vary greatly across the region. But the disparity is particularly pronounced this year, Courneya says, who's polled the 20 board members of his association about their yields.
"It's just so variable," he says. "A fair amount of my guys have said, 'This was the best crop I've ever had.' And they were done (harvesting) in the first week of September."
Mary bean farmers who enjoyed big yields this year likely will finish in the black financially this year, he says.
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At the other extreme, "I have guys who are still trying to finish their harvest," Courneya says. "It's very unfortunate for the guys who got caught by this (bad weather)."
Some other states that raise dry beans also had production problems this year, he notes.
Kennelly's experiences with dry beans this year reflect the wide variation in North Dakota yields. Grafton, in the northeast part of the state, is among the areas hit hard by excess rain.
Some of his dry beans enjoyed tremendous yields, while others had very poor yields. And he had one 80-acre edible bean field that drowned out after it was hit by 4.3 inches of rain in 35 minutes; Kennelly considers the field "prime ground," and one that typically suffers very little drown out.
In some particularly wet areas of North Dakota, 30 to 50 percent of dry bean acres won't get harvested, he estimates.
Kennelly says some of his soybean fields also suffered from heavy rains, but ended up with relatively good yields nonetheless. Given that, he's thinking about planting more soybeans and fewer dry beans in 2017.
This was the second straight year that some northern North Dakota dry bean growers were hurt by excess moisture, Courneya says.
"To convince them to dry dry beans again, well, I just wonder what they're going to do in 2017," he says.
