05 Jul Janel: Hang on to your hat

Western Kansas—We’ve had many days recently where the wind has been 25 to 30 miles per hour with gusts up to 40 and 50 miles per hour. We call them “hang on to your hat” kind of days. We loaded up in the afternoon heat and moved from southern to western Kansas the weekend of June 18 and 19. The heat and wind was terrible. It was almost too dangerous to be out traveling in it.

It’s now June 26 and we’ve had a very busy week harvesting with our Shelbourne Reynolds stripper headers. The wheat east of town yielded around 40 to 45 bushels per acre and had good test weights over 60 pounds per bushel. We were nearly pushing green wheat but all of the loads were mostly 11 to 13% moisture.

We are now harvesting further west and the wheat has been yielding over 75 bushels per acre. There’s places out in the fields where the wheat yields in the 80s and 90s. It’s very good wheat here which is surprising because there is a severe drought going on. However, these fields caught 22 inches of snow at the end of January and that moisture clearly helped the yields in this area.

I love harvesting out west. It’s a part of my summer wheat harvest that I enjoy very much. I love the western Kansas fields. They are flat and nearly perfect. We’ve had a few very mild rain showers while harvesting which messes up our combine windows. I always say that cleaning windows is an excellent workout and it is definitely part of the western Kansas wheat harvest.

Here’s an update on our new combines status. Landmark Implement delivered our last three new combines to JC and Jared just recently. We were supposed to have them before we went south for harvest but finally got them in late June. We’ve got all new ones now. I’m glad the stress of that is gone.

Our forecast is mostly hot and dry but there’s chances of light showers and thunderstorms later in the week. I hope we continue to get a lot of wheat harvested. July is approaching quickly and harvest is moving right along. Everyone please be safe working out in the heat and wind.

Janel can be reached at janel@allaboardharvest.com.

All Aboard Wheat Harvest is brought to you by ITC Holdings, CASE IH, Oklahoma Baptist Homes for Children, US Custom Harvesters Inc., Unverferth Mfg. Co. Inc., Lumivia CPL by Corteva Agriscience, Kramer Seed Farms, and High Plains Journal.

On June 18 we loaded up in the heat and wind and hauled combines from southern to western Kansas. What a trip. We traveled around 50 miles per hour only.

This is the smoothest railroad track. Whoever built it should be hired to fix them all because some are so rough.

A very hot and windy day to travel.

Harvesting wheat in western Kansas.

Out west during wheat harvest I have seen the most interesting blue skies. Pop up thunderstorms are always a threat.

Harvesting wheat.

New elevator bins. Very nice.

Servicing the combines June 22.

Moving to another field and we got rained out on the way.

So beautiful.

I love flat fields.

So dirty this year. The drought is severe.

My wheels.

I was waiting for the little rain shower to dry off.

We waited about 15 minutes and the wheat was dry again.

Such pretty wheat fields out west.

Got the field done and now time to move to another one.

Harvesting wheat.

Harvesting a very good dryland wheat crop.

Rain clouds.

Starting a new field.

I thought we missed the rain. The wind switched and then we got rained out.

There was sunshine and then rain.

Too much rain so we had to shut down for the evening.

Beautiful wheat.

Unloading on the tractor grain cart and so much wind and dust.

Harvesting wheat.

It was a very cool day on June 26.

We had hardly any breeze at all and then the dust collected heavily on the headers.

Shutting down at 11:30 p.m.