A harvester works in a cornfield in Yuncheng County, east China's Shandong Province, Oct. 10, 2025. (Xinhua/Gao Tian)

JINAN, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- Farmers in east China's Shandong Province are deploying a variety of measures to protect the autumn harvest, tackling challenges brought by persistent rainfall this season.

On a drizzly morning, soybean farmer Song Xinmeng was carrying out urgent work on his waterlogged fields in Jiaxiang County. "We have to clear the drainage ditches now. The water won't wait," he told Xinhua.

This year, he chose to plant resilient soybean varieties on his 107 hectares of land -- a decision that brings him confidence despite the relentless rain.

Joining these efforts to combat the persistent wet conditions is a local team of town and village cadres aiming to ensure farmland drainage facilities remain clear. "We are coordinating with meteorological and water authorities to carry out work during each break in rainfall," said Hu Baojun from the county agriculture and rural affairs bureau.

This year, Shandong has faced an exceptional amount of rain. With 269 percent more rain than usual, the province saw its heaviest rainfall from the Sept. 1 to Oct. 7 period since 1951, totaling over 240 mm of precipitation.

The excessive rainfall arrived at a critical time for the harvest of crops like corn, soybeans, peanuts and cotton, prompting local governments and farmers to take various actions, such as operating drainage facilities, deploying crawler harvesters and providing indoor grain-drying venues and other services for efficient grain drying.

In a muddy cornfield in Shandong's Yuncheng County, machinery operator Zhu Shoujun from the neighboring Jiangsu Province was working on a new crawler harvester. As the machine advanced, it neatly swallowed rows of corn plants, spitting out full corn cobs in its wake.

"After rain, the wheeled harvesters that performed well in previous years are prone to getting stuck, so the terrain-adaptable crawler harvesters have come in handy," said Duan Ruitao, head of a local farming cooperative, adding that the cooperative has helped harvest over 133 hectares of crops. In Yuncheng alone, 98 locally owned crawler harvesters and another 20 allocated from other areas have been deployed to hasten the harvest.

After the grain is gathered, additional work continues to prevent the humid grain from going bad. At another cooperative -- this one in the city of Weifang -- trucks line up to unload corn into roaring drying machines, with some 900 tonnes of grain dried every day.

"The drying machines are running around the clock to handle the grain from 3,333 hectares of nearby farmland," said Ma Jianhai, head of the cooperative.

The provincial government has released a detailed map of over 2,600 grain-drying service points to aid the campaign, highlighting the massive scale of coordinated efforts.

As of Saturday, the province had harvested 2.67 million hectares of autumn grain, accounting for about 60.7 percent of its total and including 2.47 million hectares of corn. Enditem

Harvested corn is loaded into a vehicle in Caoxian County, east China's Shandong Province, Oct. 9, 2025. (Xinhua/Ye Jing)