Emma: Soybean Wrap Up

It has been super busy around the Misener Family household, and I can’t believe how the time flies. Fall harvest has come and gone. The last time I updated you all we were kicking off fall harvest, but today I can officially say that the 2011 harvest season has come to a close. It’s a bittersweet ending.

I wanted to share a few fall harvest stories, since this harvest was not without difficulties. My combine caught fire on the last day of cutting when chaff build up met a hot hydraulic line. It was dry, and windy so even a small fire can be bad. We had been taking precautions to avoid fires by blowing the excess chaff from the machine, but it apparently wasn’t enough. Dan, Joel, Lee and I fought the fire as best we could and emptied all the extinguishers we had, but it wasn’t enough. The 40 mile per hour wind helped this fire get out of control fast. The fire department did get called and while we waited for them we fought the fire with one shovel and our feet.

Two hours, five fire trucks and an ambulance for precaution later, we had the fire out. Luckily it didn’t reach the corn, and if it weren’t for the teamwork we had it could have resulted a lot differently.

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This is the field post-fire. The ground is worked where the fire was, and it’s not exactly a small are. I didn’t get any pictures of the actual fire – because I was busy fighting it.

The soybeans this year averaged around 45 bushels per acre, nine percent moisture, and 58 pound test weight. Overall it was a good year. We did run into some green vines while cutting, and it took a little extra time.

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Cutting soybeans.

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This is the last field of soybeans that we harvested.

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More soybean harvest.

Be safe and God bless!

 

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