Scott: Good wheat, and holiday

Scott Clark’s crew has finally begun harvesting in Goodland, Kan. This week Scott talks about a little down time around the Fourth of July, and about high yielding wheat.

Happy Independence Day to all. After making a trip with some of our equipment up to Goodland, we discovered we’d have a few days until the crop there was ready to be harvested. The crew stopped back through our home shop at Kiowa with their second load of equipment and spent a couple of days doing some odds and ends around the farm and enjoying a little less enduring work.

Saturday, the crew continued up to Goodland and managed to start harvesting that evening.The moisture was just under 14 percent on our first field test. The guys were all anxious to climb in the seats and get their machines fired up after almost a week without any harvesting. We found out that good-looking wheat in this area, was indeed good wheat. Initial yields in the area are running around 60 bushels per acre, and areas of the field are well past 60. That kind of wheat makes everyone smile.

The same night we began cutting a storm blew in and dropped almost an inch of rain on our fields. We did not want to rut up the field, so we decided to wait until Monday to try again. That meant another day off during the holiday weekend and the guys managed to find a few fireworks to occupy their time. It was also nice to have a “sit-down” meal somewhere other than the wheat field.

Monday we were able to get back to the field and are going as hard as we can because as we all know a thunderstorm can roll in quickly and hail an entire crop out. Clients are generally not concerned with combine color, but want to avoid “the white combine,” referring to a hailstorm that takes out a wheat crop. The weatherman is predicting storms for Wednesday and Thursday of this week, so we’ll continue to work as quickly as possible and hope the forecast stays clear. You always feel a sense of responsibility to get the crop out in time, but there seems to be more obligation when high crop yields are at stake.

Hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable Fourth of July.

AQH_012 Tall wheat coming in, thick straw going out the back, and bushels pouring in the bin!

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Travis monitors the grain going into the truck as he finishes loading it.

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Jesse and Justin check to make sure the grain trailer’s third axle lift valve is working properly.

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The guys load up the corn concaves and secure miscellaneous items on the front of the second graincart trailer. With higher yielding crops, we’ll need both graincarts to avoid bottlenecks in moving the grain.

AQH__016 The tractor floats peacefully beside the combine as the machine processes the grain.

To see more pictures from Scott’s crew, visit our Facebook page.

For more information contact crew@allaboardharvest.com. All Aboard 2011 is sponsored by High Plains Journal and DuPont Crop Protection.

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