Category Archives: Wheat

Opportunity

Posted on June 17, 2011 | Leave a comment

I’ve talked in this space before about my dad’s favorite days.  One of them is the last day of harvest, when the crop is in the bin and all you have to do is dry it and sell it for, hopefully, a worthwhile price.

But perhaps the more important day is the last day of seeding.  Once the crop is in the ground you have opportunity.   If everything goes right, you will have the opportunity to harvest a crop and the opportunity to sell it for a worthwhile price.  If my seed remains in the bin and not in the ground, I have no opportunity.  I will have black dirt that has weeds growing on it and that is all.

I’ve seen many news stories this year about the high prices farmers are getting for their crops.  It seems to me that many people think we throw the seed out in the ground, it grows, we harvest it, and then sell it for a record price.

What isn’t reported is the roll mother nature plays in farming.  This year our challenge has been a wet, cool spring.  The fields really never did dry out to an acceptable level to be planted.  We planted a lot of our crop in marginal conditions this year.  Everything is going to have go right to have a decent crop this year.  We will have to have enough sunlight and heat to get the plants up and moving, we will have to see moderate rainfall to coax roots from poorly planted seeds to go down in the soil to get the nutrients the plant needs.  We will have to have a late fall to allow us to harvest the crop in a decent matter, and if we are lucky we will get the fields in good enough shape to plant a crop next year.

As you can see, there are a lot of ifs involved and a lot of things that will have to go right.  Most importantly, the seed is in the ground and that is what will give us opportunity.

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Posted in Farm Wisdom, Uncategorized, Wheat, World market

What do you do when its COLD!!!

Posted on January 3, 2011 | 1 Comment

This blog originates from 20 miles south of the Canadian border.  There are very few people in my world who wouldn’t qualify as “southerners.”  A few weeks ago, a friend of mine, who happens to fall under my definition of southerner, posted a question on Facebook.  She said, “I put gas in my car today and it was 20 degrees, how do you people from the north cope when it is so cold outside.”  My response was that we think about putting on a jacket.

Today, at 6 pm, it is -16 degrees Fahrenheit.  According to weather.com there is a south wind at 8 mph.  In this part of the world where the wind blows all the time, that is a gentle breeze, a 20 mph wind is not uncommon.  Sixteen degrees below zero and an 8 mph wind give us a wind chill (what the air feels like) of -34 degrees.   At this temperature exposed skin freezes in 10 minutes.  Average for today is -8 so we aren’t to far from normal.  In fact I’ve seen windchills in the -50 range when exposed skin pretty much removes itself from your body and moves to Florida.

Tonight, my pickup is parked outside.  It has a head bolt heater that you plug into the wall and keeps the engine warm.  We are to start hauling grain on Wednesday, the tractor and trucks are also plugged in.  If you don’t plug them in, the engine oil is so stiff it doesn’t flow and the engine won’t start.  In Canada it’s not uncommon to see people drive around the city with extension cords plugged into the front of the car and the other end wrapped around a mirror.  In the morning, I will start my pickup and listen to it groan.  I will turn the defrost on HIGH and let it run for 15-20 minutes before I leave.

Tractors and trucks are no different.  I will let them both run for quite a while to let them warm up.  Not only is engine oil stiff, so is transmission and hydraulic oil.  It is very important to let everything warm up before you try to move or operate something.  At times, with a few stubborn vehicles, we have had to put a Knipco heater under the truck to warm it up in the morning.  At times we will also put cardboard around the engine on the tractor or in front of the grill on the truck to keep the machine from sucking in all the cold air.  By doing this you keep the engine warm and give the heater a warm supply of air to blow into the cab.  Also, the engine is only half the battle; brakes can freeze too.  You can either take a hammer to break the brake free or put a heater in the frozen area to thaw it enough to get the tire to turn.

We use a great big vacuum, imaginatively called a grain vac, to suck wheat out of the bin and put it in the truck.  At times you will suck some snow into the machine.  The machine will melt the snow.  If you let the machine sit for a prolonged period, say the period between when you leave for and return from the elevator, the water in the vac can  freeze.  The resulting ice will freeze the machine solid.  this usually means you are done for the day.  You need to put it in the shop overnight and let it thaw, or take a wrench and try to turn the operating mechanism manually.

So how do you cope when its cold?  You adjust and you prepare and you just deal with it.  We’re farmers and we deal with what mother nature gives us.  In the end it’s just something we have no control over and you learn to deal with that which is not in your control.

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Posted in Making a living, Weather, Wheat

Urban Wheat Field

Posted on September 24, 2010 | 1 Comment

Yesterday and today I’ve been volunteering in Washington DC.  The Wheat Foods Council (www.wheatfoods.org) has brought a living wheat field to the mall of Washington DC.  We are just down the street from the Capitol and outside the National Museum of the American Indian.

Wheat comes to Washington DC

Wheat Industry brings a living wheat field to Washington DC.

The purpose of the event is to educate our urban countrymen about wheat.  The display is set up from field to fork, starting with a combine and pallets full of wheat at various stages of development, millers demonstrate how raw wheat is turned into flour, the Nebraska Wheat Growers have brought there mobile baking lab, and at the end is a grocery store aisle with nutritionists teaching folks how to read labels and showing just how many products contain wheat.

My part has been to answer questions in the wheat field.  Questions have ranged from the complexity of the wheat genome, to the fact that family farms are still prevelant on the countryside.  We’ve had teachers ask about the nutritional value of different kinds of flower and administration workers ask why we only grow certain crops in certain parts of the world.  We’ve had school kids come and see just how big a combine is and some older people come and say “I grew up in Montana, I know what this stuff is.”

Wednesday was interesting on Capitol Hill, wheat farmers canvassed the House office buildings inviting members and staffers to visit the wheat field while outside, PETA protestors dressed in HazMat suits protested the egg industry.   It’s because of organizations like PETA that don’t really know what happens on farms that we farmers have to do events such as this.  Farmers generally don’t seek opinion forming headlines and that is part of our problem.  This event is attempting to do just the opposite, grab some headlines, correct some false opinions, and educate the masses.   It reminds me of a story about a school teacher in Toronto who gave her kids a bean seed in a styrofoam cup, we’ve all done this in school, I’m sure, she told her kids to put it in some dirt, add some water and watch it grow.  That was all fine and exciting to the kids until one who resided in a high rise apartment building asked “where do I get the dirt.”  I never thought I’d take dirt for granted but I guess I do.

If your in DC stop by the Urban Wheat Field, we are on the street outside the National Museum of the American Indian or check the picture gallery on www.wheatworld.org.

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Posted in Policy work, Wheat

Quit Before You Break Something

Posted on August 10, 2010 | Leave a comment

It’s amazing how the events of one day can affect the events of another.  Two days ago, just before we quit for the night, I hit a patch of green weeds that my combine didn’t care for that much.  Combines work better with dry stuff, green, wet stuff generally makes combines growl.  This patch of weeds was no exception as it not only made my combine growl, it brought it to its knees.  It went in the header, went up the throat, and my combine politely told me “feed accelerator speed 0,” the feed accelerator was plugged.  In a combine, anything that says speed 0 is a bad thing.  Since midnight was approaching, we went back to the trucks, unloaded, investigated briefly, and went home for a frustrating night of attempted sleep.

A few years ago, I plugged the feed accelerator and vowed to never do it again.  That time it took about 4 hours to unplug the thing.  The feed accelerator sits right behind the header and throws the material being harvested into the separator.  To unplug it, you have to pull by handful the wad of straw that is plugging it.  There is no reverser, there is no easy access to the thing.  Yesterday morning, I went to the field hating the task ahead of me.

Thankfully, the was wasn’t that big.  You can put the feed accelerator into low range and thankfully the wad went through and it wasn’t much of a problem.  As part of the clean out process, you increase the clearance of the separator and raise the straw chopper to ensure the wad doesn’t plug anything else.  Unfortunately, when we put the straw chopper back in place the belts that run that were put into low range not high range.  It ran fine throughout the day, but eventually, just as we were quitting for the night, the belt broke and then the back end of the combine plugged.  The screen on the monitor politely said “discharge beater speed 0.”  So I went home again for a miserable night of sleep.

As part of my unwinding process I google “unplugging discharge beater” looking for hints from other farmers on unplugging the thing.  The discharge beater is even more miserable than the feed accelerator to unplug.  If everything goes right you can move the drive pulley by hand and get the plug out.  Unfortunately, the wad can pack tightly and you can’t move the pulley by hand or by wrench.  Some suggestions from combine forum included wrapping a chain around the pulley and attaching the other end to a pickup, cutting the wadded straw with a sawzall, or chainsaw, and, my favorite, using a cutting torch (dry straw + flame = fire hazard) in one hand and a garden hose in the other hand.  I can only imagine that guy burning the straw with one hand and putting out the fire with the garden hose in the other.

With all this wonderful encouragement we set out to unplug the combine this morning.  We looked and investigated and could not turn the pulley by hand.  But we did discover what happened in the first place.  The drive belt was on the wrong set of pulleys, a mistake from the night before.

We did find a wrench that fit the nut on the pulley and a great big bar to put over the wrench to increase our leverage.  And to our amazement, it budged.  Just a little but a little is better than none.  I climbed in the back of the combine and pulled shards of straw out of the plug.  We moved the pulley back and forth.  Each time getting a little farther.  And finally the wad came out.  And it only took three hours.

As you can tell since this is such a long post, I have some time on my hands.  We got a shower this afternoon that made us quit for the night.  The forecast is for hot and humid tomorrow.  If we don’t get anymore rain hopefully we’ll be back in the field tomorrow and I’ll post with my thumbs.

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Posted in Harvest, Uncategorized, Wheat

Combining Day 3

Posted on August 9, 2010 | Leave a comment

Its day 3 of harvest and things are going well. The weather events we were forecast for went south of us. We have had lots of sunshine and LOTS of heat. I don’t know how hot it is outside but it is pleasant in the cab.
While I enjoy my a/c and autosteer, I think of my dad and grandpa. For my dad, technology was a cab and a/c. For my grandpa, technology was a combine that moved without the aid of horses. Hopefully I will expound on this later, for now its to hard to type with my thumbs and keep an eye on things at the same time

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Posted in Harvest, Uncategorized, Wheat

And So It Begins

Posted on August 6, 2010 | Leave a comment

We started combining this afternoon.  The good news is the wheat was at an acceptable moisture content, the bad news is the ground was not at an acceptable moisture content.   We left some ruts and found it impossible to move in some parts of the field.  I went scouting for fields that would be better and while the ground in the other fields was drier the wheat was wetter.  Is it to much to ask to have dry wheat and dry ground. The forecast is also, to be blunt, crap.  The weatheradio guy says we have a 50% chance of rain tomorrow.  Thunderstorms are possible and contain large hail, damaging winds, and, locally, large amounts of rain.  Hopefully we are the 50% that misses the storms.

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Posted in Harvest, Uncategorized, Wheat

The List

Posted on August 1, 2010 | Leave a comment

Every season brings a list of things to do to get ready.  We are now on the verge of harvest.  I’ve spent the last three weeks getting the combines ready.  Two weeks ago I thought I was done.  Then I went to the combine clinic at the local John Deere dealer and came home with a new list.  Now I think I’m about done.  The bearings are greased, springs tightened, windows washed.  About ready to go.  Tomorrow I need to load the combine with all my creature comforts, the satellite radio, a cooler, a shade for the window.  All the things that make me comfortable.  But this list almost always makes the first day of harvest the most relaxing day of the season.

Today we spent some time at the county fair.  Our purpose was primarily to look at a barn.  But I like looking at machinery.  My mother in law was with and she climbed up on a tractor.  She said it looked big enough to live in.  And my wife said that I basically do.  And its true.  During combining, I get in the machine in the morning and don’t get out, hopefully, until we quit at night.  Its a long day, a long time to sit.  But its what we do.  And its fun.  And if it quits raining we’ll start soon.

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Posted in Wheat

Oklahoma

Posted on June 7, 2010 | Leave a comment

Just got word today that the wheat harvest is going great guns in Oklahoma. Unfortunately, the quality isn’t very good and they are having a hard time finding buyers for it. The bad part about wheat is that there are tests for many different quality factors. Like many products, buyers will pay a premium for the best stuff. Last year, we had poor protein, and the market discounted the wheat about $1 per bushel. Oklahoma is suffering the same fate this year. The poor guys, they got froze out two years in a row and this year they have a crop that nobody wants. Hopefully, the quality improves as harvest goes north or we will have real problems trying to sell this stuff.

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Posted in Crop conditions, Farm gossip, Wheat

Wheat Field After a Week of Rain

Posted on May 31, 2010 | Leave a comment

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Posted in Weather, Wheat

Pins and Needles

Posted on May 22, 2010 | Leave a comment

So my last post was about being bored and how that was a good thing. As we approached the finish line of seeding, you find yourself on pins and needles. With the superweeder, the tractor sporadically lost its air conditioning, then, with 2 hours left in the field before the thing could be parked, I lost power. So I cleaned the air filter and that seemed to take care of it. I was hoping it wasn’t the fuel filter, that’s the last thing I wanted to do is replace a fuel filter with only 2 hours of work left. Also, the tractor has been traded for a new model that will be showing up any day. Once that field was done, it wouldn’t be used again on our farm. So please, get through these last two hours and be somebody else’s problem.

The next day, I seeded that field. This is also pins and needles time as you hope that nothing breaks before you can park it and not have to worry about it till next season. I had one spring break and I didn’t have another one to replace it with. It still worked so I left it alone. Also, it gets a little nerve wracking wondering if you have enough seed and fertilizer. Obviously, you have to have enough seed to finish the field. But you don’t just want to load up full either as emptying the unused seed and fertilizer is a real pain. My prognostication skills worked fortunately. I had a little more seed than I’d planned but it wasn’t to much to broadcast over the field. The deer have to eat too, they can have some of my extra seed. And that was that, 3,300 acres of wheat planted. My dad would say, its hard to have a good crop if you can’t get it planted. Now its planted, we’ll tend it and care for it and hope the good Lord provides the rain and sunshine to make it grow.

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Posted in Equipment, Farm Wisdom, Wheat