Look who made the trip and is keeping me company til the girls get here. Isn’t he growing!!

 One thing is certain with harvest – nothing is certain!

I had an idea when we left home we may be sitting for a little while before we did any cutting. That appears to be the story. Our farmer has a combine. To make the situation a little easier to understand, our farmer also has a Shelbourne Stripper Head (to see what I’m talking about, click here to view a Shelbourne Head) and uses it to cover his dry land wheat. The stripper head removes only the head of wheat and leaves the straw. It does exactly what it sounds like it does…it strips the head from the plant. These headers are very popular in this part of Kansas because the straw that’s left will help catch any snow that may happen to fall. And in this “desert”, any moisture received is precious. He has us cut the wheat under the irrigation pivots because it reduces the amount of straw. Typically, irrigated wheat will grow much better than dry land – due to the amount of water that can be applied to the wheat as it’s growing. Too much straw affects planting next year’s crop.

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