11 Jul Laura: Word of the week—weeds

Northern Oklahoma and southern Kansas—It has continued to rain which has delayed harvest yet again. However, you know what hasn’t been delayed? The growth of weeds in the field.  

Did you know that weeds like Palmer amaranth can grow up to 3 inches a day? It doesn’t take too long for weeds like this and others to wreak havoc on droughty, thin wheat.  

There are a couple positives though. The ground conditions are holding. Also, the stripper headers are doing well in the weedy fields. An advantage they have is that they are only taking the head of the wheat and are not running all the plant matter through the machine like it would if we were running draper headers. This is helping keep the moisture in check and the dock lower without as much foreign matter.  

One frustration is the humidity has been so high that we haven’t been able to get early morning starts while here. The moisture in the grain just stays up for such a long period of time. This is in addition to storms that have also continued to pass through the area.  

Yields have been very variable due to the drought. We have lost some acres to it. Some fields we have cut have hovered around 10 bushels per acre. There was a bright spot that may come in near 40 bushels per acre. Test weights have held their own at 60-plus and the crew has seen protein as high as 15%.  

Laura Haffner can be reached at laura@allaboardharvest.com.

All Aboard Wheat Harvest is brought to you by Unverferth Manufacturing Co., Inc., High Plains Journal, New Holland, ITC Holdings Corp, U.S. Custom Harvesters, Inc., Kramer Seed Farms, and Lumivia Insecticide Treatment by Corteva Agriscience.