Wheat Harvest

Rice is the first crop planted in the spring. Then we follow with soybeans. Wheat is planted in the fall after the other crops are harvested. It is called Winter Wheat and creates patches of beautiful vibrant green in the dead of winter. This is the time for harvest and many farmers plant soybeans behind the wheat. We are letting this field "lay out" or rest this year after it is harvested. We practice crop rotation and always plant crops which will add back to the soil after another crop has used the nutrients. Yesterday we started the wheat harvest. Master March planned his visit so he could ride the combine--one of his favorite things in the world.

Happy farm boy

There is a buddy seat with a seat belt.

View from inside the cab.

Another view.

Much of the time the driver of the combine is looking up and to his right at a screen. Once the pattern for cutting is established a gps records it (somehow--above my head) and the combine actually steers itself! We use it on tractors, also. This would've saved a lot of arm waving back when I first learned to drive a tractor! Another advantage of this compurized genius device is that during harvest it shows the bushels per acre yielded and the exact spot that may be weak or strong, so when applying fertilizer you set it up with the spreader and it unloads the exact amount of nutrients needed in any given area.







Usually we have grain carts go into the field to carry the grain to the truck, but this is a smaller field and we don't have the manpower to run an extra machine because rice watering is also underway. The combine is unloading directly into the truck,




This is "Neecy" waiting on her Dad, who will drive the grain to the port on the Mississippi River. It will be loaded on a barge and delivered to the buyer who may be in the United States or another country.