Tag Archives: harvest

99 Bushels of Harvest with Frosted Mini-Wheats [Video]


Have you seen the latest Kellogg’s Frosted Mini-Wheats commercial? It brought a grin the first time I saw it. I wonder if wheat farmers really drive through the golden fields singing “99 bushels of wheat on the farm, 99 bushels of wheat!” (especially with dancing cereal biscuits?). Here’s the video in case you haven’t seen it.

I’m pretty sure wheat harvest is long over by now. Actually, I shared a few facts about wheat harvest as it was occurring back in July and highlighted the Zeorian family who works as a custom harvesting crew based in Nebraska. Now that we’ve hit October, the Griggs family of the Dakotas shows that next year’s wheat crop is already emerging. It’s amazing how quickly the crop rotation turns around.

The United States is a major grower of wheat in the world, following only the European Union, China, and India. The USDA ERS has many great facts about global and local wheat production.

  • Wheat ranks third among U.S. field crops in both planted acreage and gross farm receipts, behind corn and soybeans.
  • U.S. wheat harvested area has dropped off nearly 30 million acres, or nearly one-third, from its peak in 1981 because of declining returns compared with other crops and changes in government programs that allow farmers more planting flexibility.
  • About half of the U.S. wheat crop is exported.
  • Despite rising global wheat trade, the U.S. share of the world wheat market has eroded in the past two decades.

Farming crops like wheat is a great tradition for many U.S. farming families like Daren Williams showed in a previous post. A quick search shows that many wheat farmers are sharing their stories online. Farmers like Brian Scott of Indiana are taking us inside the combine during harvest and capturing video of the process. We can’t forget the Peterson Farm Brothers with their viral video, I’m farming and I grow it (yes, the song is still stuck in my head), which was filmed during wheat harvest. Janice Person has a great post sharing more about these Kansas farm boys and their family farm.

In my part of the world, I’m used to wheat being grown as a dual purpose crop. Many farmers will grow the crop for cattle to graze during the cool season, then pull them off the fields in time for the crop to start maturing to produce grain. Farmers from Texas and Oklahoma, like David Cleavinger (@TXWheatFarmer) will likely be sharing their stories online during the wheat-growing process.

I can’t wait to follow these great farmers as the next wheat crops gets started and this Kellogg’s commercial sparked a few thoughts I had rolling. All of the wheat farmers linked in this post also share their stories on Facebook and Twitter. Be sure to check the links on their blogs.

Do any other fun wheat farming commercials come to mind?

Satisfy your “Taste Bros” with Fall Harvest


Alright, so I have to ask… How do you satisfy your taste bros? My buddy down in College Station has me stuck on this latest Sonic commercial, and we’ve decided…

“It’s like we’re not even taste buds. We’re taste bros. It’s like we all went through some real cool nature experience together, but things didn’t get weird…”

Here, I’ll just show you the commercial spot. I swear, I’m not making this up.

I usually get my taste bros off to a good start every morning. A little cereal and chocolate milk before I leave the house, a mug of coffee when I leave and another when I make to the office. Then the cafeteria is next door, so I usually grab some bacon and steak for a mid-morning breakfast by 9. Mmm, yep. I’d say my taste bros get a good workout!

As Fall kicks in I start thinking about all the great foods of the season. Pumpkin first comes to mind. More specifically – pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, with coffee of course! Then there’s those pecans! Oh man, now I’m really getting hungry.

What foods are harvested in the fall season?

Image Credit: Brian Scott – The Farmers Life

There’s a ton of foods and crops being harvested as we move into the Fall season.

Farmers like Matthew Boucher of Illinois or Brian Scott of Indiana and even Zach Hunnicutt of Nebraska are busy sharing about their corn harvest online. Matthew had a great blog post recently about the importance of safety on the roads during harvest. Brian does a great job of explaining where his corn, soybeans, and even popcorn goes after harvest!

Vegetable farmer Tyson Roberts of Utah is busy sharing photos of his peaches, sweet corn, cantaloupes, onions, and sweet potatoes that are being harvested this fall!

Rice harvest is wrapping up across much of the Mississippi Delta and California this Fall. With the recent news stories of arsenic levels in rice, many have been asking, “Is my rice safe to eat?” A friend and North Dakota mom answered this question on her blog and says it’s safe. A great friend of mine in St. Louis answered this as well from her experience of working with many crop farmers. As a farmer friend in Oregon pointed out, we’d have to eat an unbelievable amount of rice before we even had a chance to feel any ill-effects of arsenic levels. So, I’d say it’s safe to eat.

We can’t for get about those Texas cotton farmers out there working hard to supply our favorite natural fiber. I can even think of a few cranberry and apple farmers like Ben in Michigan working hard this Fall. And someone has to grow those mums too! My friend Mike in Ohio will be working hard on those.

I’m pretty excited to connect with all of these farmers online and follow the fall harvest season through their posts, photos, and tweets. What other foods and crops can you think of that are harvested during the Fall season?

Wheat Fields Before and After Harvest


Wheat harvest finished up on the farm here in Middle Tennessee in the last few weeks. I was stuck in the office and didn’t have the opportunity to capture the actual harvest on the farm. Last Tuesday, I invited a custom wheat harvester to share her story on my blog.

Here is a photo of the wheat on May 6, about 5 weeks before harvest.

Here you can see how tall the wheat crop is (I’m on my knees)

After harvesting the seed portion of the plant, the combine leaves behind  the stem, or stalk. These stalks are in windrow piles behind the harvester.

We bale the wheat straw for winter bedding in the bull barns. Last Fall, I talked about how much fun it is to spread out by pitchfork in each and every stall. Dust masks are needed if the straw is too dry. But if it gets wet at baling, mold will form.

After the straw bales are moved off the field and stored in the barn, soybeans will be planted in these fields into the wheat stubble, without disking up the land. Here is a field that has already been planted a few weeks prior. This is an example of double cropping.

I run everyday around the grass, waterways at the edges of these fields – surrounded by wheat (now soybeans), corn, pastures, and cattle. It makes for a great view and reminds me how blessed I am to be living on a farm while in school.

How is wheat used after harvest?

Wheat is one of the most common crops in the world used for human food supply. It is actually a grass that has been selected for its seed and is a very common cereal grain.

There are thousands of varieties of wheat, but can be organized into 6 classes: hard red winter (HRW), hard red spring (HRS), soft red winter (SRW), hard white (HW), soft white (SW) and durum. Here is a map that describes where each class is generally grown in the U.S.

Wheat is used for a number of products outside of human food - Polymers, Packing peanuts, Plastic Bags, Plastic film, eating utensils and molded items (biodegradable), Packaging, foams and insulation (biodegradable, starch-based), Reinforcing agents in rubber products (flour-based), Charcoal, Cups, Fine paper products (carbonless copy paper), Fuels, Golf Tees, Insulation, Medical swabs, Roofing and other building materials, Skeet pigeons, Textile finishing agents, Wood substitute in composite building materials. The Kansas Wheat Commission lists many more non-food uses of wheat.

A portion of the U.S. wheat crop is used for livestock feeds. Most of this coming in the form of by-products from the milling processes – wheat middlings, straw, or chaff. One of the largest uses for wheat in Oklahoma is grazing for cattle during the stages before wheat starts developing its seedhead.

What other uses for wheat can you identify?

Learn more about wheat farming from this North Dakota Wheat Farmer.

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Guest Post: Custom Wheat Harvesting


Wheat harvest has completed here on the farm in Middle Tennessee. The wheat seeds are harvested and the straw has been baled for winter bedding in the bull barns (More on this tomorrow). But how was it harvested and where did all of the equipment go?

Across much of the country, row crops like wheat are harvested by custom harvest crews. Some operate regionally while others spend most of the year, trekking across the country, following the crop as it become ready for harvest.

One of these families is the Zeorian Harvesting & Trucking crew. Tracy, the mom (found on Twitter as @NEWheatie) blogs about her families adventures on the road as a custom harvesting crew. It’s always fascinated me how these crews start harvesting in Texas and make their way to Montana and even Canada.

Today I have invited Tracy (who regularly blogs at NebraskaWheatie.com) to share a little about what a custom harvest crew is, and how the business has strong roots in her family. Hope you enjoy!

Zeorian Custom Wheat Harvesting as told by Tracy

Wikipedia defines the custom harvester:

“In agriculture, custom harvesting or custom combining is the business of harvesting crops for others. Custom harvesters usually own their own combines and work for the same farms every harvest season. Custom harvesting relieves farmers from having to invest capital in expensive equipment while at the same time maximizing the machinery’s use.”

From the eyes of a third generation custom harvester, I will give you my definition.

My grandparents chose to make custom harvesting their lifestyle in the early 1950’s. That is what it is – a lifestyle. The typical custom harvester will leave their home and everything that produces security and comfort about mid May and will get back as late as December. Grandpa and Grandma would have been in their late 30’s when they chose the lifestyle. Grandpa was 80+ years old when he decided he should stay home.

Harvesting is all I have known for most of my life. My husband was a hired man for my grandparents and we did not intend to follow the harvest after we got married. God had other plans. We have raised our four daughters on the road. The two older ones (Jamie, 26 (married) and Jenna, 24) wish they could still come while the two younger ones (Taylor, 17 and Callie, 14) still do.

It is usually the first of April when the equipment starts coming out of its winter quarters. It’s at this time Jim will give the combine, the header and the trucks a “goin over” to make sure it’s road ready. The more maintenance he can do before hitting the road means less he will have to do while on the road.

When May 1st rolls around, the trailer house is packed and Jim gets a little more serious about finishing his work. We usually leave home mid to late May for our first stop in Texas. The combine is loaded on a combine trailer and hitched behind the semi. The grain trailer will be hooked to the combine trailer to complete the train. My truck, the wheat header, the service pickup, an extra pickup and our trailer house will complete the list of equipment heading south. It takes us two trips each time we move.

When we leave home, it will be the last time we see green wheat. Once we get to Texas and begin harvesting, we will chase the ripening wheat to our last job in Central Montana. Custom harvesters own one to thirty (or more) combines and the necessary support equipment it takes to replace the farmer in the fields. For the farmer, the custom harvester eliminates the expense of owning costly equipment and finding additional labor during harvest. The custom harvester can harvest the grain in a timely and efficient manner, which is crucial when the storm clouds are threatening on the horizon. When the job is done, we will load up, pack up, move to the next town north, and start all over again.

I have often said the custom harvesting lifestyle is an addiction, one that is loved by those who do it and intriguing to those who do not.

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If you’re a farmer, do you use a custom harvesting crew? What other crops are harvested by a custom crew?

Have you ever encountered a convoy of custom harvesters on the road?

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