A shortage of storage is delaying the end of what is said to be the best-yielding soybean harvest in eastern Kansas history.

Steve Wilson, owner of Baldwin Feed and Grain, and Matthew Vajnar, grain merchandiser for Ottawa Cooperative Association, which owns two elevators in Lawrence, said most of this year’s soybeans have been harvested, but there is no room in their elevators for the 5 to 10 percent that remain in the field. Their elevators are operating on a “truck out, truck in basis,” meaning that once they ship a truck of grain to a larger destination elevator, they will accept a truck from local farms.

“Nationally, they say the soybean harvest is over,” Wilson said. “I think the only place still harvesting in Douglas and Franklin counties.”

What was needed to solve the end-of-harvest logistical bottleneck was a week of rain that stalls combines and gives elevators the opportunity to reduce their grain inventories, Vajnar said.

There’s much good news despite the storage problem. It was a bumper crop that filled local elevators, and demand continues to keep soybean prices high despite the high local yields.

Wilson said yields varied from 30 to 60 bushels per acre, but that he “would like to think” most of those bringing beans to his elevator averaged about 50 bushels per acre. Yields of more than 40 bushels per acre would be considered a plus, he said.

Vajnar said surveys he completed for future brokers found an average of 48 bushels per acre.

“That’s awfully, awfully good,” he said. “For yields, that’s the best crop ever in eastern Kansas.”

Good yields often mean depressed prices, but demand, particularly foreign demand, continues to keep soybean prices at or near $9 per bushel.

“The demand is there from China,” Vajnar said. “That is something that has continued to grow. I don’t think there’s any question that is adding a couple of dollars to farmers’ bottom lines per bushel.”

The bumper soybean crop followed a good but disappointing local corn harvest, Vanjar said. His surveys indicated an average in eastern Kansas of 140 bushels an acre.

“That’s still good, but probably not as good as last year,” he said. “People were expecting more.”

A very wet May followed by a hot, dry June hurt the yield, Vajnar said.