Monday, August 23, 2010

Harvest update





We are almost done with all the combine work. We've finished the hard red and soft white wheat, and most of the cayuse oats. We have about 9-11 acres of flax left to do, and all of the naked oats. By the end of this week all the standing grain will have been thrashed. The beans, sunflowers, and walnuts still have a little ways to go before they are ready to harvest. The yelloweye beans looked pretty bad not too long ago, and they still don't look great, but we looked at them closely today and saw lots of pods. There is a photo of a yelloweye with pods, as well as a photo of the yelloweyes next to the pintos. What was interesting about that was the pintos failed completely in that part of the field, while the yelloweyes did not. The pintos were a total failure actually. It seemed that the yelloweyes did better in areas where the pintos just stopped growing. The sunflowers are ripening at vastly different rates. We will have to be harvesting them continually for weeks once the most mature ones are ready. Some flowers have still not opened at all, while others are starting to drop their petals already. In a laughably inept effort at deterring birds, I have placed mylar "scare tape" on tall T-posts around the perimeter of the field. I have also made a scarecrow that I am putting up today. Hopefully that will help some in keeping out the birds. I also included photos of the uncleaned flax and red wheat.

2 comments:

  1. Clinton,

    Jason Bradford wrote a post on The Oil Drum about your farm, and since then I've been thinking about the challenges that would be involved in converting from diesel combines to electric equipment.

    Could you tell me what model combine you use? What is it's rating in horsepower?

    Thanks.

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  2. We use 2 John Deere 8820 combines. They are about 200-220 HP. Thanks for your interest.

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