Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Wheat harvest down on the farm

We started harvesting wheat June 20th and finished July 2nd. There was only one day that the weather didn't cooperate with us and we couldn't harvest. Wheat doesn't have the ability to stand in the field after maturity like many crops can, so wheat harvest begins as soon as the crop is mature and we try to finish as quickly as possible to reduce weather related quality problems. The wheat yields and protein was respectable, we were a little concerned about the quality reports coming from Texas and Oklahoma before our harvest and quality related discounts. The first week I was in a combine and the second week I was planting and catching up on other work after I helped get the combines and crew running each morning.

wheat,wheat harvest,harvest,Farm
A picture of all 3 of our combines working in the same part of a field during wheat harvest. Our combines are older, but they still get the job done.

wheat,wheat
Here I am unloading wheat on the grain cart while it's unloading on the semi. We commonly dump like this rather than waiting for the grain cart to finish unloading, besides Tyler does a great job of loading the trucks.

combine,combine
One of the combine's header is too wide to transport on the combine so it's transported on a trailer. I thought it would be neat to snap a picture of it looking in my side mirror.

wheat,wheat
We store some wheat on the farm. This happens to be Hard White Winter Wheat. White wheat from a farming perspective grows nearly identical to our Hard Red Winter Wheat. I think the berries have a sweeter taste, I love to grab a handful to snack on while unloading.

corn,corn
We also started irrigating our corn during wheat harvest. Weather that allows for a good wheat harvest is not the best for corn. Depending on how much rain we get between now and sometime in mid August, when corn reaches physical maturity, will dictate how much irrigation water we apply.