22 Jul Harvest Party

Southeastern Morgan County, Colorado: The crew was temporarily reunited Monday in southeastern Morgan County, Colorado. It was the type of day harvest dreams are made of. There was plenty of heat, a breeze, and a beautiful big blue Colorado sky for a backdrop. There was also the pressure to get as much wheat out as possible in hopes to finish up the current farmer before the predicted storms set in.

Five combines were going round and round in the field doing their harvest dance, while the grain carts looked like worker bees going from combine to combine to collect the grain. Just as soon as a truck arrived at the field it was sent back to the elevator. The wheat was excellent. It was a harvest party, and the much anticipated guests of honor were the trucks. We turned our eyes to the western horizon hoping to see a growing dust cloud which meant a returning truck. With the amazing conditions, we had all of our trucks on the scene and they were going all out to keep up.

Our farmer gave his crop a good future throughout the growing season with fertilizer, weed control and fungicide. He is a dryland farmer, so he’s at the complete mercy of precipitation. The other day, I realized I haven’t given my readers a baseline when I tell you this may be the crop of a life time. I asked him what he would hope for as far as an average crop. He replied that if it made forty bushels per acre he would be very happy. He’s currently blowing his wishes out of the water. We’ve been cutting 60-80 bushel wheat with much of it in the 70ish bushel range. That is about a thirty bushels average over what they hope to make in a decent year! Amazing!!! The only damper to the situation is grain prices. They are very low, and last I checked, grain products at the supermarket have not followed this trend down. What can you do? For now, everyone is trying to keep their head up and be thankful for such an abundant harvest.

As luck would have it, the storms just couldn’t wait and a combine with a terrible sense of humor had an untimely breakdown which left about forty acres in the field. Ryan was discouraged with how it timed out, but they were to go back and finish a couple days later. All machines are running and have moved to the next farm of this stop.

Below are some photos I captured of the crew working together on Monday.

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All Aboard Wheat Harvest™ is sponsored by High Plains Journal and New Holland Agriculture. You can contact Laura at laura@allaboardharvest.com.