(NGC) Our wheat harvest.

[Gliderjohn]

The guy that farms my ground was cutting our wheat today. Looks like it will only take about six hours to cut 95 acres. Involves a lot of computer stuff anymore but amazing what can be done with it.





















GliderJohn

[yogidozer]

95 acres in six hours! now THAT's a days work. 

[Guzzi Gal]

Well, that's just cool!  May you get a good price for your harvest.

[Lannis]

Well, that's just cool!  May you get a good price for your harvest.

If g-john's like me, he rents his land for a fixed price each year, not on a share of the crop sales proceeds .... ?   Most farm operators would rather have it that way ...

Lannis

[Chuck in Indiana]

We farm on the shares and yes.. it's certainly different from when I was a kid. The old man and I started plowing and discing as soon as we could get in the fields.. normally mid April. We'd finish planting beans when the 500 was on, normally. (end of May)
They come in now, and the whole farm is planted in 4 hours.

[guzzisteve]

I actually know a kid that programs that computer stuff for Deere. My cousins eldest, not really a kid anymore. Nice not to have to do soil samples as often.

[twowings]

They teach that newfangled GPS-based agriculture stuff at the local technical university...the field gets worked while the farmer watches Oprah in the air-conditioned cab...

[Chuck in Indiana]

They teach that newfangled GPS-based agriculture stuff at the local technical university...the field gets worked while the farmer watches Oprah in the air-conditioned cab...

Pretty much..

[mjptexas]

We farm on the shares and yes.. it's certainly different from when I was a kid. The old man and I started plowing and discing as soon as we could get in the fields.. normally mid April. We'd finish planting beans when the 500 was on, normally. (end of May)
They come in now, and the whole farm is planted in 4 hours.

OMG! Flashback!  We'd consider it a good season if the corn was in by Dad's birthday (May 5) and the soybeans were in the ground before June (northwest Iowa).

[Lannis]

Here in this county, corn planting starts when either the poplar leaves are the size of a squirrel's ear, OR the day after the night you hear the first whippoorwill .... Mother Nature has her own local messengers ... !

Lannis

[Gliderjohn]

From Lannis:

If g-john's like me, he rents his land for a fixed price each year, not on a share of the crop sales proceeds .... ?   Most farm operators would rather have it that way ...

We do both. The property that I took the pictures at is share cropped. It is in south central KS which is a pretty good farming area overall. We also have property in far NW KS. Farming is a bit more dicy there so we cash rent there.

[Chuck in Indiana]

OMG! Flashback!  We'd consider it a good season if the corn was in by Dad's birthday (May 5) and the soybeans were in the ground before June (northwest Iowa).

Pretty much.. 

[Guzzistajohn]

Hay country here. Looks like they hauled off the field across the road today. Always fun to watch the vultures swoop in while they rake. 

[stubbie]

My brother inlaw had 22,000 acres. Used to do it the same way. I've never harvested but have done some laps ploughing. Mind numbing stuff at about 4mph don't know how he ever did it hour upon hour.

[Rough Edge racing]

 I'm in an agriculture area north of NY's Finger Lakes... We lease 8 acres to a local farmer who also leases land from other people in the area that don't farm...Used to be dairy farms but lower milk prices have more farmers doing beef cattle..Next year we are considering not leasing out the land ,doing an electric fence and some beef cows..My wife has also increased the size of her egg layer chicken flock...
   This is from our kitchen window, the wheat is not quire ready.......

   

[Gliderjohn]

From Roughedgeracing:

This is from our kitchen window, the wheat is not quire ready.......

Nice!
GliderJohn

[LowRyter]

uber?

elon musk?

[Rough Edge racing]

From Roughedgeracing:Nice!
GliderJohn

  Thanks...I watched the farmer cut a field about twice the size out ours...Hanging off the back of a medium large tractor was what looks to be like a huge brush hog mower and a auger type machine that transferred the material into a truck ..
  Some grow soy beans or feed corn..

[reidy]

I am from Australia so I am not familiar with yields and returns in the US but I am guessing that is about $20000 worth of wheat. Great return per hour, if it was only every day not a couple of times a year it would be good.

Steve

[Rough Edge racing]

 Here in NY state the average yield of wheat per acre is about 70 bushels..In the Midwest, Kansas, I believe it could be 100 bushels per acre...last year the price in NY was $4.85 per bushel...If we had 100 acres that would be $34,000 gross...The machinery to work the land cost many times that..
  The farmer who leases our field uses the wheat grain for cattle/cow feed, the stalks sold for straw..

[Gliderjohn]

From Reidy:

I am from Australia so I am not familiar with yields and returns in the US but I am guessing that is about $20000 worth of wheat. Great return per hour, if it was only every day not a couple of times a year it would be good.

Anymore a good yield in our area is considered to be 60 bushel an acre or more. The guy cutting my wheat says at $5 a bushel he needs a minimum of 40 bushel an acre to break even.
GliderJohn

[Texas Turnip]

In the "good ole days" you cut it with a binder, shocked it, came along with a team and wagon to load the grain, then hauled it to the threshing to throw the shocks into the thresher Lots of manpower, but WOW did the women folks put on a feed.

Tex

[John Croucher]

The bad part of the increased efficiency is the need to apply glyphosate/2/4-d to the wheat a week or two before it is harvested to kill the field evenly.  Then we eat it.  A couple of weeks before the wheat is harvested in my area a spray vehicle will drive thru the field and spray the glyphosate. Leaving trails in the field where the tires crush down some of the wheat.  A week later the field will turn a consisted brown/tan color.  We end up eating the glyphosate/2/4-d in our wheat based foods.  Yummy.

[Gliderjohn]

From John Croucher:

The bad part of the increased efficiency is the need to apply glyphosate/2/4-d to the wheat a week or two before it is harvested to kill the field evenly.  Then we eat it.  A couple of weeks before the wheat is harvested in my area a spray vehicle will drive thru the field and spray the glyphosate. Leaving trails in the field where the tires crush down some of the wheat.  A week later the field will turn a consisted brown/tan color.  We end up eating the glyphosate/2/4-d in our wheat based foods.  Yummy.

What area of the country are you from? I have never seen or heard of that being done around here. What is the purpose? There is no need to "kill the field" before harvest.
GliderJohn

[John Croucher]

From John Croucher:
What area of the country are you from? I have never seen or heard of that being done around here. What is the purpose? There is no need to "kill the field" before harvest.
GliderJohn

Indiana.  It makes it fast and efficient.  After it is harvested, the stalk is baled and then corn or soy beans are planted. Usually drill planting. Picking has been slowed by the constant rain.

That worst part of the glyphosate spraying is the drift.  It kills other plants.  When the Farmers in my area try to take advantage of the patch work of crop fields between housing tracts, they end up killing home gardens, lawn shrubs and trees.     

[Rough Edge racing]

The bad part of the increased efficiency is the need to apply glyphosate/2/4-d to the wheat a week or two before it is harvested to kill the field evenly.  Then we eat it.  A couple of weeks before the wheat is harvested in my area a spray vehicle will drive thru the field and spray the glyphosate. Leaving trails in the field where the tires crush down some of the wheat.  A week later the field will turn a consisted brown/tan color.  We end up eating the glyphosate/2/4-d in our wheat based foods.  Yummy.

  That what I see here in NY...The tall tractor sprayer leaving the tire marks...then after a  week or so it turns brown... Our leased field was sprayed in late spring to kill broadleaf weeds....The same farmer , on his own land and other leased land doesn't appear to use "browning" spray...

[Lannis]

From John Croucher:
What area of the country are you from? I have never seen or heard of that being done around here. What is the purpose? There is no need to "kill the field" before harvest.
GliderJohn

Never seen that here either.   I wouldn't allow it on my fields.

Along with "biosolids" as fertilizer.   My first job involved working in two city sewage treatment plants, so it's easy to recognize that smell.    I don't care what they've done to "process" it; even pigs know to do their business over in one corner of their pen, and not do it right in their feed trough .... !

Lannis

[Rough Edge racing]

Never seen that here either.   I wouldn't allow it on my fields.

Along with "biosolids" as fertilizer.   My first job involved working in two city sewage treatment plants, so it's easy to recognize that smell.    I don't care what they've done to "process" it; even pigs know to do their business over in one corner of their pen, and not do it right in their feed trough .... !

Lannis

 Are you ok with pure chemical fertilizers?   Yes, pigs do not lay in their crap,... And contrary to what Bill says on Brit Bike, properly cared for chickens don't eat shit... We use straw bedding from our chicken coups , aged for a about a year,as mulch and fertilizer for our gardens...

[Lannis]

Are you ok with pure chemical fertilizers?   Yes, pigs do not lay in their crap,... And contrary to what Bill says on Brit Bike, properly cared for chickens don't eat shit... We use straw bedding from our chicken coups , aged for a about a year,as mulch and fertilizer for our gardens...

Year-old chicken litter is a great soil ameliorator .... just gotta remember not to apply it "fresh", it'll burn everything right down to the root!

Lannis

[Sasquatch Jim]

 Whistle pigs in Washington state can harvest alfalfa that fast.