It seems like farmers are in a race to get harvest finished. You might hear about farmers working from dawn until well after sunset – sometimes working 18 hour days or longer – to get their crops harvested. Why does harvest happen so fast?
Why Does Harvest Happen So Fast?
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Everything sort of shuts down in rural America during harvest season. (During planting season too, but that’s another post.) Farmer Doc and I are very involved with Indiana Farm Bureau, Inc., and there is an unwritten rule that no unnecessary meetings or activities are scheduled in September and October so the farmers can get their harvest done. But what’s the big rush?
The Crops Are Ready
Farmers wait until their crops reach a certain stage of dryness to harvest them. This means that moisture content inside the corn kernel or soybean (or any other crop like wheat, canola, or sunflowers) has to be just right – low enough, but not too low. This is why you see what looks like dead fields still standing well into the fall. Farmers are watching and waiting for these plants to be dry enough before they harvest them. This ear of field corn is ready to be harvested.
If soybean plants get too dry, there can be big problems. The bean pods can open and the soybeans will fall out onto the ground. Have you ever tried to pick popcorn kernels out of your carpet? That’s what it’s like when soybeans fall onto the ground… except the soybeans are well-camouflaged against the dirt. Which means that they are lost. If the pods do stay closed, the beans can get so dry that they shatter into tiny pieces when they are harvested. Those pieces are lost, as well. The soybeans in the photo below are ready to be harvested.
The Weather Window
Weather is a big deal for farmers. We have to wait for the weather to be right before we can begin planting. We have to hope it stays right for the entire growing season. We have to wait for it to be right to start harvest. And we have to hope it stays right until harvest is finished.
When it rains, the crops get wet. If grain is put into a storage bin when it is wet, it will grow mold and rot. The farmer could lose a lot of his grain (and a lot of money) to mold damage.
Rain makes mud. If the fields are too wet and muddy, the combine, tractor, grain cart, and semi trucks can’t get into the field. If this heavy equipment is driven in muddy fields, it will leave deep ruts, damage the ground, and potentially even get stuck.
Severe weather can damage the crops. Heavy winds can push corn stalks or bean plants over, knock corn ears off the stalks, or knock bean pods off the plants. If a cornfield had problems with the European Corn Borer during the summer, the plants will be even more fragile and likely to break during bad weather.
The photo below is from my friend Sarah’s farm in Canada during their canola harvest. The canola was cut into large straight swaths (similar to windrows when we harvest hay). Then high winds blew the canola out of the swaths, making is much more difficult to harvest. The winds also blew some of the tiny canola seed out of the pods, which means they lost a lot of their crop.
Photo courtesy of Nurse Loves Farmer
Hail can be a big problem, too. Plants that are “laying down” (have been blown over by the wind or knocked down by hail) can sometimes still be harvested, but it takes more time and careful driving. If the ears of corn, bean pods, or seed heads on wheat or canola fall off the plant onto the ground, it’s nearly impossible to harvest them. The photo below is another from Sarah’s farm. This wheat field was damaged by hail early in the season, and didn’t grow to maturity. Do you see all the green seed heads on the ground? The wheat stalks were broken by golf ball-sized hail, and this entire field was lost.
Photo courtesy of Nurse Loves Farmer
While we aren’t likely to have pre-harvest snow in southern Indiana, it can happen in other parts of the United States. In another wheat field on Sarah’s farm, the snow covered the mature wheat and bent the stalks. This causes two problems. Now the grains (and the fields) are wet, and can’t be harvested until the snow melts and the ground dries. And when the wheat stalks are bent over like this, it is much harder to harvest, and more grain is lost on the ground.
Photo courtesy of Nurse Loves Farmer
Farmers have a very small window when they can harvest their crops. There is also a very small window to harvest our hay. When the plants say they are ready and the weather is cooperating, it’s time to go, no matter what else is going on.
What other questions do you have about farming and harvest? Leave me a question, and I’ll answer it in the comments below.
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