GREELEY —The area’s ongoing dry bean harvest has provided yet another pleasant surprise for many local producers.
Harvest is more than half done for the crop that covers tens of thousands of acres in Colorado and makes about a $30 million economic impact on the state each year.
And many dry bean farmers — like growers of winter wheat, onions and other crops that have been harvested in 2012 — are recording average or even above-average yields, despite the challenges they’ve faced all year.
The Greeley area, like many other parts of the U.S., is experiencing its driest and hottest year on record, and snowpack in the mountains — which melts in the spring and fills farmers’ irrigation ditches — amounted to only a fraction of historic average. But after receiving a couple of timely rains this summer and putting in extra man hours to stretch limited irrigation supplies, farmers say yields for many crops, including pinto beans, are surprisingly good.
“I think a lot of guys around here are pretty amazed at how well things are turning out,” said Wayne Yanish, operations manager at Colorado Bean Co. — a Greeley facility where beans are hauled in by local farmers, then dehydrated, cooked and sold to fast-food restaurants across the nation.
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