Sunny skies beckoned combines into corn and soybean fields all across Iowa last week as farmers worked feverishly to make up for lost time following two weeks of rain delays.

“We’re getting after it, finally,” said Kipp Fehr of Mallard. “There are a lot of beans coming out this week.”

Fehr said he finished combining his soybean crop and had almost 50 percent of his corn crop harvested by late last week, making good progress but still way behind last year’s pace.

“We’re making up a lot of time,” he said. “Last year, I finished up on Oct. 14.”

Rainy weather during the first two weeks of October caused the slowest soybean harvest progress seen in more than three decades in Iowa, according to the USDA’s weekly crop report last week.

Just 32 percent of the soybean crop was harvested as of Oct. 15, the lowest percentage for mid-October since 1985. Only east-central Iowa farmers had harvested...