A warmer than usual summer was hard on some of the earlier crops this year, but for those yet to be harvested, like beans and corn, things are looking much better. 

“We kind of had a rough summer, but I think we’re gonna have a good fall,” farmer Rick Stroh said. “My barley was down, but beans are good. The corn looks good too. The first cutting of alfalfa was low, but this second cutting’s pretty good.”

Rick, his wife Klodette, and sons Paul and Ricky have a large farm east of Powell. 

“It’s usually not so hot here and we have lots of water to irrigate, so we can kind of control the moisture in the beans,” Rick said. “I think that’s probably the main reason because generally it’s like 80s or low 90s in the summer instead of 100 for two weeks in a row.”

He added that planting the beans earlier means they are farther along when hot weather hits and they do better. He begins planting by around May 16. It usually takes about a week to get all the beans planted. 

“The majority of the bean land is pre-irrigated,” Klodette added. “We pre-irrigate the bean ground so when we plant them, they have water in the ground and then they come up. We were blessed that we had the water. Thank God, we had the water to irrigate them. They have lots of foliage on them because it was hot, and they look beautiful.”

The Strohs began cutting beans at the beginning of September. They planted 600 acres of beans so it takes nine to 10 days to cut them all. The beans then need about a week to dry before they can be combined.

“It takes us a while because a lot of people have 100 acres or 300 acres, but between me and my boy Paul, we have about 600 acres of beans,” Rick said.

Light rains during cutting are beneficial because it makes the bean tough and farmers can cut longer. Once the beans dry out, usually around 10 a.m., it’s time to stop for the day.

“That’s why you see a lot of guys out cutting before daylight, because the dew on them makes them tough, and you can cut longer,” he said.

The Strohs plant either yellow or pinto beans, with this year being the latter. While the beans are drying any big rainstorms will push back the harvesting timeline.

“We had rain last year,” Klodette said. “They cure for about seven to nine days, so when it rains on them, you still have to wait for them to dry. It depends on what kind of beans you have. There’s the yellow beans, black beans and pinto beans in the valley. You just have to look at their characteristics to see what you need for them.”

While their key money crop is looking good, some of their others struggled this year. The drier conditions of the winter and spring meant alfalfa and grains had to be irrigated to come up. 

“It didn’t stool out this year like it usually does to have better yield,” Rick said. “So grain was down across the board. We have wheat, barley and oats. Even the oats were down, and I generally have really good oats. It was pretty hard on everything, especially our first cut in hay and then we had weevil real bad in it. It was just a tough cut.”

The Strohs planned to begin their second cutting of alfalfa in early September as well. Rick said it was really heavy and starting to lay down.  

“I think it’s gonna be pretty good hay,” he added. “We’ll make up for the last cut a little bit.”

In more than 35 years farming in the Basin, the Stroh family has basically seen it all when it comes to farming, from snow in early September to drought and bad hailstorms, to bug infestations. 

“It just depends on the weather,” he said. “The weather either makes you or breaks you, pretty much. We’ve been in a dry cycle, which is much better because snow and beans don’t mix very well. Even lots of rain makes it tough to harvest them. They get real tough and then they don’t want to shell out very well.”

With a week or two to go until the beans are dry and ready to harvest, all they can do now is wait.

“I’m just hoping and praying that everybody has a good crop of beans,” Klodette said.