Altona area farmer Wes Martens wrapped up his harvest over the weekend. He said he was surprised by this year's corn yields.

"I think I had one field, due to some significant compaction issues from last fall, that did not have a great yield... but the rest of it was a real surprise, anywhere from 140 up to as high as 175. I've never had fields on heavier soils go that high before," said Martens, owner of Wesmar Seeds.

"I think the best crops were on fields that had the poorest crop last year, so it kind of makes sense that that excess moisture from last year in reserve assisted this year's crop because we were badly short of rain," he explained.

Martens noted that many of his customers also had a good corn harvest.

"For the most part what they say and what I experienced on my farm is good bushel weights, you know, average up to as high as over 60 pounds."

He added that his drying costs will be lower this year.

"On my farm probably the last 35-40 percent of my acres went straight in the bin, much of it between 15 and 17 percent," said Martens. "Just a remarkable dry down because again, we've had very nice weather, great sunshine, and wind."

Martens said that many area farmers will be done combining by the end of the week. Normally his own personal goal is to have everything wrapped up by Oct. 25. "That's sort of our semi-guarantee for weather," he said.

When asked about disease issues, Martens said he didn't encounter too many problems.

"We saw very little Goss's wilt in the corn, we saw there were some leaf diseases but nothing really significant. It was too dry to have a serious disease problem in the corn. There was just some corn that just plain died off from lack of moisture."

Even though Martens has finished harvesting, he noted there is still tillage and drainage work to be done.