Harvest 2020

     Twenty-twenty is good vision.  But 2020 has not been a very good year. 

     As we pass through the midpoint of the year, 2020 continues to misbehave.  It shows no sign of reforming.

     Harvest 2020 was not the worst harvest on record.  Too many candidates vie for that position.  Various hail years spring to mind where the combine driver could look down and see plenty of wheat seeds on the ground, with no way of collecting them, while a sicky trickle of seeds drizzled into the combine’s grain bin. 

     Or a year in the late sixties when wheat badly hailed in May “suckered out” and offered to rejuvenate itself.  We sprayed with 2-4D to kill the weeds.  Then we swathed the crop when the weeds proved to be too much for the combine.  We spent a day with Dad on the tractor and me on the old Number 3 John Deere picking up the windrows.

     After we had done 40 acres and barely had 150 bushels of wheat (and a bunch of dried weed chunks about wheat kernel size) to show for it, we gave the crop up for lost.  When Dad hauled it to the local grain elevator, Dick had him dump his load in the cleaning mill.  Dick said we could use it for seed.  Which we did.

     That was the last time the old Number 3 ran.  Some years later, a wind storm knocked off the exhaust and air intake pipes.  Water got into the motor and it is now rusted in place.  I always thought I would restore the old gal, but that seems more and more remote as time passes.

      A truck driver who came to haul the 2019 crop suggested I donate the Number 3 to a museum somewhere,  He had never seen a combine like that.  He said folks should be able to see it.

      Well, I digressed.  Problems with the 2020 wheat crop began in September of 2019, when I planted it.  It should have come up better, as I put it in ample moisture, but hot windy days ensued before the crop could germinate.  The “stand” was spotty.

      Some, not all, of the seeds that didn’t grow in the fall, took off in the spring after skimpy snow storms filled the rows with some moisture.  Those plants were a week to ten days behind that which germinated last fall.  Meanwhile, weeds filled the blank spaces.

      At harvest time, those plants that grew in the fall were ripe, but the spring-germinated plants were still green.  I was able to harvest maybe 50 or 60 acres.  Then I had to wait for the rest of the crop to ripen.

     Meanwhile, the weeds gained in stature.  The usual harvest monsoon asserted itself in .2” or .3” showers every other day or so.  And the weeds grew.  I could not spray them and retain my organic status.

      So when I did get to harvest the late-bloomers, I had to take in quite a few weeds with the wheat.  The one positive out of it, 100-degree days with wind dried out the weeds.  They went through the combine with a minimum of trouble when it was hot and breezy.   I left maybe 40 acres because the wheat wasn’t worth dealing with the very rank weeds.

      Because of the weeds, the moisture content of the grain was higher than I like for it to be to put it in the bin, so 150 bushels or so remain in a pile on the ground.  I will load it up and take it to town with the wheat from the buffer zones I am required to keep separate from the “organic” crop.

     It ain’t over till the fat lady sings, which in this case means it won’t be over until the combine is cleaned and shedded.  Cleaning the combine, never much fun, will be worse than usual due to the frequent inconsequential rain showers.

      The moisture combines with the dust, chaff, straw and beards to form a paste.  When it dries, it sticks.  Compressed air can remove dry dust and chaff, but the “paste” has to be scraped off with a putty knife.  

       The cleansing and storing of combine has been delayed while I attack weeds in the summer fallow.  And so it goes. 

      I told one of my neighbors we musn’t expect two good crops in a row.  2019 was the best crop I have ever raised.  And then along came 2020.

      Most oft-repeated phrase in the neighborhood:  “Sure could use a rain.”