Hendrik is cutting oil sunflowers.
Amanda Buus Thomsen – BT Harvesting
Ever seen these crops?
I have good intentions about sitting down and sharing my thoughts and photos…I really do. I have so many things that I think would be neat to share, but sometimes they just never come about. I have countless photos on my phone and camera that are just waiting to be shared, but are destined to remain in a sort of picture purgatory…until now.
Since my last post we have traveled over 1,100 miles to get to our farmers, cut seven different crops, split into three different crews running in two different states, hired two more employees and still somehow managed to hang on to our sanity…for now.
While we were cutting in North Dakota I found a couple of crops that you might not see every day.
This is a field of mustard. When in bloom, it has small bright yellow flowers and looks similar to Canola.
A mustard plant
Mustard seed
I found this field of flax on my way back from the field one evening. When in bloom, it has pretty blue-ish purple flowers.
Flax plant
Flax seed
At our next stop, we arrived in time to see their canola being desiccated via helicopter.
Yes, they really do get that close when they spray! They have to be very careful not to get tangled up in the crop as that could cause the helicopter to flip.
We cut some really good wheat.
It would’ve been nice to have all three machines in a row, but it was a shame that I was in the third one when I took this photo.
And the Canola wasn’t too bad either!
Manuel is straight cutting canola. Straight cutting just means that the crop is being cut while it’s standing. Another method is swathing canola – where it is laid down and picked up with a pick-up head.
The guys got to have a bit of fun while waiting for the crops to dry, they went paintballing!
We got finished up there and moved on to our next job in South Dakota where we were able to hit the ground running. Soybean harvest was quickly underway! We sent one machine to Nebraska to start on beans, but the weather was being rather difficult and caused some significant rain delays.
These may have been some short beans, but they yielded really well!
South Dakota soybeans
Our Nebraska crew has started Corn harvest and is hard at work now that the weather has straightened out. We’re trying to finish up the Milo and Sunflowers so we can get those corn headers on!
Cutting some milo
A head of milo
Sunflowers aren’t nearly as pretty at harvest time as they are in the summer time!
An oil sunflower head
There are two types of sunflowers typically grown – oil and confection. Oil sunflowers are commonly used to make cooking oil while confection sunflowers are what we buy at gas stations or sporting events.
Fall harvest is always crazy and busy and we’re in the middle of it! Wishing everyone favorable weather and a safe harvest!
The life as a HarvestHER is never boring!
