Start of Harvest Thoughts
It is currently 8:30 pm on a beautiful fall evening. I’m writing this post from the seat of the combine. Isn’t crazy how far technology has come? Our world is so connected now. I can take a photo of the combine, press a few buttons on my phone to share it on social media (you can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) and thousands of people across the globe can see it. The combine is fitted with AutoSteer and RowSense technology, which allows it to (mostly) drive itself. Always nice to have, these technologies have proved themselves almost a necessity in a harvest like this year’s. With the corn as down as it is, it is nearly impossible to row. Without the technology, it would be extremely difficult to know where to steer the machine so we are on the correct rows. AutoSteer uses a GPS signal to guide the machine on the correct path. We can establish a guidance line, enter in the width of the implement and the machine will follow that line exactly until we tell it to stop, making a path as wide as the parameters we set. RowSense is fitted to the corn heads, there are two sensor bars on one of the rows. When a corn plant pushes these sensors back, the combine detects that it is on a row and will default to that over the GPS signal and follow that row wherever it goes.
As we knew it would, harvest is proving to be more of a challenge this year. Every year has it’s own set of problems we have to face, but this year could be our most difficult harvest ever. We started harvest a couple of days early, on the 13th. The hot end to August and the start of September dried things down quickly, quicker than we were expecting. We were concerned that the plants that were kinked and down wouldn’t dry properly. But that doesn’t seem to be the case, and things are drier than we were anticipating. However, that is not entirely a good thing. Part of the reason the corn is lower moisture is because all of the plants, standing and down, are dying early from disease. Why the disease pressure? We aren’t totally sure, there are probably several contributing factors. Of course, the damaged plants are more susceptible, and even many of the plants that are “standing” are willowed over. Even though those plants were not kinked off, they still took damage during the windstorm. And once disease gets a foothold in a field, it doesn’t take long for it to spread to the healthy plants as well.
Another challenge that we weren’t anticipating is low test weight. If you aren’t aware, test weight is the how much a bushel of corn weighs. Because a bushel is technically a volume measurement, but corn is measured and traded by weight, we had to come up with how much a bushel weighs. The USDA has established a standard weight of a bushel of corn to be 56 pounds. But, sometimes corn doesn’t weigh that much, or it can also weigh more. According to Iowa State University, corn can have a test weight anywhere from 45 to over 60 pounds. If you are interested in reading more about test weight and why it matters, here is an interesting article about it. But why are we getting low test weight? Once again, we aren’t sure, and there are several things that could be causing it. Of course, the plants that are kinked over died early and never reached full maturity. There is another theory that is floating around as well. It could partially be from the wildfire smoke cover we had this summer. There were many days where the sky was filled with the hazy smoke, and we were not getting the full amount of sunlight. Pioneer Seeds has an interesting article about it here, and it’s well worth the read. As our climate continues to change and wildfires become more common, dealing with a smoky sky will probably become more common.
Of course, our biggest challenge this fall is the down corn. We have been concentrating on getting our worst fields done first. The weather overall has been good, and we have been taking advantage of it. Even still, we have been getting a lot of dew which means a late start and normally an early quit as well. When the down plants have a lot of moisture, we can’t get them to feed into the machines correctly. It’s a slow process, with a lot of stopping to clear plugs out of the corn heads. We are having to run very slow, normally around 2 mph, when we normally run over 3 mph. Just yesterday, we finally found a field we cannot harvest without fitting reels to the corn heads. We just got one put on, and we will give it a shot again. The reel will help pull the plants up the corn head and into the machine. Without the reels, the plants just ride along on top of the corn head. The reels should help us get through our worst fields, and hopefully we can get those done and start to concentrate on soybeans and our better standing corn.
Even with all the bad things that this harvest is throwing at us, there are always upsides. First and foremost: the weather. We knew going into this harvest that the best thing we could hope for was dry weather. And we are getting that. Having things stay dry is crucial to getting this corn picked up and out of the fields. The second, and this is always the same no matter the year: the sunsets. Harvest sunsets are almost always spectacular, and this year already has given us many amazing ones. One of the best things about being in the field is getting a full, clear view of the sunset. And I don’t think that part of harvest will ever change.
It has been difficult for us to come up with a plan of action. Normally, we say “Let’s go to this field today, and when we finish, we will go to that field”, and it works out. But this year, it seems like as soon as we come up with a plan, something changes and it’s back to the drawing board. We just have to take it one day at a time and face each new challenge when it presents itself. And if we only manage to get 20 acres done in a day, that is 20 more acres done and 20 acres closer to the finish line of Harvest 2021. Thanks for taking the time to read this update! I will be back in about a month with another one and we will see where harvest has taken us by that time! Until then, stay safe, happy harvest, and enjoy the fall!
