It’s harvest time and the Brazos Valley has always been noted for the three Cs, corn, cotton, and cattle, and while cattle numbers are down, it looks like corn and cotton yields are some of the best ever.

“If you talk to most of the farmers here in the bottom, just about every one of them will tell you that this may be one of the best years production wise in our history, and not just the cotton crop, the cotton crop is what we’re looking at here, but the corn crop was one of the all-time best as well as milo and grain sorghum.”

John Malazzo farms in Burleson County.

“I think that goes to show you that a little rain fall at the right time means a whole lot on the farm, and we had some rain in the first two weeks of July, that basically is the difference between what we have this year and what we normally have.”

Cotton and corn yields were well above average.

“This cotton crop is probably going to be between 3 and 4 bales to the acre which is good for us. Our normal yields are probably two and a half or so. Corn, a lot of of it did 170, 180, 190 bushels. Average probably is 140, 150.”

And technology played an important role in this year’s harvest results.

“The varieties that we have today are different than our dad’s varieties and there’s a lot more potential and I think this year finally all of the elements came together to allow the new varieties to perform like they were designed to.”

I’m Kailey Carey tracing the journey our food and fiber makes from the farm to our homes, From The Ground Up.