The first state to complete the 2024 soybean harvest was a surprise: Minnesota has finished its harvest, the USDA said in the latest Crop Progress Report.
The state was five percentage points ahead of its five-year average for November 3. This is a change from 2023, when Louisiana was the first state to get all of its soybeans in the bin. Minnesota Soybean Growers Association President Darin Johnson, who farms in Faribault County near the southern border, says that weather conditions played a big role in farmers getting into fields early to harvest.
A really dry August and September pushed the harvest window up so much that farmers were in the fields harvesting soybeans by mid-September. According to the June Acreage Report released by USDA, Minnesota planted the third-most soybeans in the country in 2024 at 7.53 million acres.