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Unseasonably warm temperatures and workable weather has helped farmers catch up on late-season harvest of corn, soybean and sunflower crops.

According to the Nov. 23 state crop, livestock and weather report, 21 percent of corn, 92 percent of soybeans and 86 percent of sunflower has been harvested statewide, although all are below their respective five-year harvest averages.

At nearly a quarter of its long-term average, the corn crop is in the most dire situation.

The persistent problem of high moisture levels continues to hinder corn harvest progress, and the lack of drying capacity at several locations throughout the state could force producers to wait until the ground freezes to harvest their corn, field reporters noted in the most recent report.

Darin Anderson, vice president of the North Dakota Corn Growers Association, said a majority of corn fields in the state have moisture levels of 25 to 30 percent, although he has heard of some growers in the southern part of the state combining 18.5 to 19.5 percent corn.

"On a scale of 1 to 10, it'd have to give this a four. We have lower test weights and mold problems, although most of it is removed through the drying process," he said. "It's better than it could have been but it's worse than last year."

With his own field samples at 22 percent, Anderson was headed out to combine more than 100 acres of corn near Valley City Tuesday afternoon.

"A lot of guys have gotten a good start," he said. "I'm just getting out now because I was late with the beans and I wanted to finish my fall fertilizer application which has taken about two weeks."

Anderson is not alone.

Within the state there are wide variances of harvest completion rates with only nine percent of corn harvested in the east-central region of the state compared to the north-west areas of Minot, Williston and Mohall, which has 62 percent of corn harvested.

On the other hand, soybean harvest has progressed to more than 90 percent complete in all areas of the state with some regions reporting 100 percent completion including the areas surrounding Minot.

Like soybean, the sunflower harvest is also nearing the finishing line.

North Dakota leads sunflower-producing states with 86 percent of its harvest completed, up 20 points from the previous week, although it is below the five-year average of 94 percent complete.

"There may be one or two stray fields left out there, but the vast majority (of harvest) will be wrapped up before December," said Larry Kleingartner, executive director of the National Sunflower Association, based in Mandan.

As harvest comes to a conclusion, Kleingartner said wide ranges of oil content are being noted throughout the growing region depending on the planting date and area of production.

In Kansas and Colorado, he said ranges have been between 30 and 35 percent, due mostly to late planted fields not reaching maturity, while further north sunflower fields have averaged 43.3 percent, just shy of the 44 percent five-year average.

"We had a cool (growing) season so we are a little down on the average but not by much," he said. "For the northern growing area we typically see between 39 and 47 percent (oil content)."

The lower oil content might result in a price hit to farmers, but Kleingartner said it will be minimal for most because of good yields statewide and the availability of unloading the lower oil-content seed into the bird seed market.

As with all other crops this year, storage continues to be a concern for many farmers and has forced some to store their sunflower crop on the ground or delay their harvest in some cases as producers wait for storage space to open up.

With better than expected yields, Kleingartner said South Dakota has been impacted the most by the lack of storage space, but he said it could also be the case here in North Dakota.

"Typically we have the sunflower harvest from late September to now but this year we started Nov. 5 and are going until now," he said. "The compressed harvest makes it a real challenge for farmers and forces a lot of decisions quickly like whether to slow harvest down, keep it in the field, store it on the ground or take it to the elevator."