30 Jun Jada: Rain blesses the Limon area

When rain is about to hit our field, adrenaline overtakes us. As a custom harvester your goal is to keep cutting until it’s absolutely too wet to cut without throwing grain over. We do this because we don’t want a bad storm to flatten the field we are in.

Much needed rain on the horizon.

At the same time, we are conspiring on how we are going to park the equipment (away from the west as most hail comes from that direction), get our trucks and the grain cart tarped before the real raindrops hit, and get our trucks out of the field before they get stuck (trucks and soft ground equal disaster and we don’t want to spend the next day pulling out stuck trucks). Nothing is more fun than watching the storm coming in. It’s actually quite exciting despite the stress of the situation. However, if watched us you’d probably think we are running around like chickens with our heads cut off.

And the race is on to unload and park combines, tarp the grain cart and trucks and get the trucks out of the field before they are stuck.

Due to fire everyone was praying for this rain and our prayers finally brought rain two days ago. While the rainfall wasn’t much, the little there was helped with the fires  in the area. The first rain didn’t affect us in the field at all because it was so dry here. We essentially waited for the rain to quit and were right back at it cutting. Last night, it rained enough for us to know we would have a waiting period for the wheat to dry. We had to shut down around our evening meal time, but were able to get back in the field early today.

Dave dumps on the grain cart in hopes to beat the real rain drops.

We are currently harvesting North and East of Limon. In the East, wheat is yielding anywhere from 28-48 with test weights from 59- 61. North of Limon, the wheat is faring a little better due to farmers receiving slightly more moisture and rains at the right time. The yields are ranging from 50 to 70 bu./ac. with 59-61 test weights. Moisture is all over the board for both areas ranging from 7% to 17%. The reason for this is because not all the wheat came out of the ground at the same time due to lack of moisture.

An after supper lull allows Montana and Bux time for fun in the field.

All Aboard Harvest is sponsored by High Plains Journal and Syngenta. Jada Bulgin can be reached at jada@allaboardharvest.com.