21 Aug Janel: Wheat fields as far as you can see

Southwestern North Dakota—We’ve been on the road for three months harvesting wheat. It’s now Aug. 14 and in another month or less we’ll be done with wheat and then fall crops will be next. However, I enjoy being here. When you drive through North Dakota you’ll see wheat fields stretching as far as you can see. The nation’s leading producer of spring wheat and durum is North Dakota. There’s lots of big wheat fields and they are very pretty at this time of year.

Harvest is just beginning here. The winter wheat was a 30-bushel crop. The spring wheat has been yielding in the 60s, 70s and 80s. The test weights have been 60 pounds per bushel and the protein 15%. North Dakota spring wheat typically averages 47 bushels per acre so it’s above average this year. It’s in good to excellent condition and standing well.

We cut for a few days then got a half to one inch of rain. Hopefully, the wheat will finish maturing and dry down. We need dry weather to give us a quick harvest here. We have one more stop north on our wheat harvest run. After that we’ll go back to Nebraska for fall harvest.

Our forecast is sunny and clear with highs in the 80s and 90s. We need the forecasted heat, sunshine and wind to get moving along. There’s slight chances of rain later in the week but hopefully we can stay busy cutting wheat and canola.

Our six combines out in Montana have been staying very busy harvesting high yields. Their forecast is clear and they’ve got lots of work to do cutting wheat, durum, barley and chickpeas.

Janel can be reached at janel@allaboardharvest.com.

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