The Long Harvest is Finally Over.

With great relief I am happy to report to you that harvest for the 2010/11 season is finally complete. On the 7th of March at 2pm the last row of windrowed barley was reapt. This is quite a bit later than the optimal finishing date, which would be early January. We had been waiting on the moisture to come down in the barley, to get it below the required 13.5% maximum, but when it come down we were into it again as hard as we could. The reason for pushing so hard in the end was that there was another rain even forecast... and we beat it! About an hour after we finished the rain started again. We only received around 9mm, but other areas in the state received quite a bit more.

So what's next? well I'm glad you asked. With the recent rains alot of weeds have germinated out in the paddocks. While some of the weeds are good weeds that provide good feed for the sheep, there are also paddocks with some quite nasty weeds which will need to be sprayed out before they get out of control.

The ewes will be due to start lambing in just over a month too, and with harvest being late, that means that we are now running late with other jobs. Crutching the sheep is a job that would usually be well underway by now, so the crutching is really quite a priority.

We are also looking down the barrel of this years seeding program, which should start around 6 weeks from now. We're changing over some of the seeding equipment this year so we'll need to start on the alterations pretty soon too, or we'll be running behind with that as well.

The Long Harvest

While most farmers in Sth Australia have finished their harvest for the summer, we are still plugging away at it. We only have about 90 hectares of windrowed barley to go, which would only take us a day or two, but with the recent wet weather, we've been held up yet again. Last Friday we received 89mm of rain, and as barley has to have a moisture content of no more than 13.5% when delivered, you can understand why we've taken a few days off. And a few interesting stats from the harvest so far....

• we have reapt over 3000acres of various crops.
• the header has clocked up over 400 working hours
• I have delivered over 100 loads to the Viterra and GrainFlow sites in the area.
• The closest distance to a delivery site is approx 5km.
• The longest is about 85km. (that I have delivered to this harvest that is... obviously there are other sites further away).
• The Kenworth has clocked up over 15,000kms in the 3 months since harvest started.

We are now thinking about options to make harvest next year a lot faster. The possibility of a new combine harvester has come up.

harvest update

Harvest is continuing with all the canola finished and about half the peas. The "snail guts" I mentioned last time just got too much for the machine and the grain elevator kept blocking up. So I decided to go on with something a little more abrasive, such as barley, that will actually clean the machine. The first couple of barley paddocks are done, and now that we are staring a little warmer weather in the face I've started on some wheat.  It is all busy busy out in the paddock with a header, plus a chaser bin and myself driving the Kenworth semi-tipper taking load after load out to deliver to our local port.

Harvest update

The weather is being a little kinder to us now, the rain has stopped and the sun is shining, ideal condition for harvesting. Moisture content in grain is very important. It cant be over a certain percentage. So hence when we have we weather the harvesting cant continue until the grain dries out again. That can take a coupla days, but with the right conditions we're all good to go.

We're slowly getting the peas done. During the wet weather we took the opportunity to do a bit of maintenance on the pea plucker. Alot of the fingers broke off in the first paddock which was riddled with clover vine. Probably about half of them needed replacing. It was a relatively simple process (once we worked it out) of just drilling the broken ends out of the holders, cutting a new nylon finger to length (25cm - and they're 10mm diameter flexible nylon rod), threading the end and screwing them back in the holders.

Another of the quite common joys of pea harvesting is snails. The pea plants do attract snails, so heavy snail control methods are used during the year to try and lower their numbers. But still some remain, and the problem with them is "snail guts"! See what happens is when the peas go through the header the snails that come with them get smashed up and the "snail guts" coats the inside of the grain elevators and bubble auger. It combines with all the dust that is going through as well and forms a solid layer which, left unchecked, sets solid like concrete and blocks the machine. So cleaning out snail guts is part of the process of reaping peas.

Reaping canola is much nicer. It's cleaner, quieter, and far less snails. It is a little slower picking up the canola rows with the windrower pick up, but still it's worth it. Canola is worth alot more and the oil content is good too.

Well it's back to my office now, which is the cab of the Kenworth semi-tipper.

Harvest time

We've had as little cold, and damp weather lately so harvest hasn't progress very quickly at all in the past few days, until today. Yep it's warmed up nicely and so the header is now flat out into it. At the moment we're reaping peas. We have been doing them for a couple of days because they can be reapt when it's cooler. And now that it's really starting to warm up it looks like we will keep going... as long as the thundery clouds steer clear. While the headers going we also have the windrower going as well. I'm cutting down the barley into wind rows because it will be the last thing we actually reap. Having it in rows will protect the heads from blowing off onto the ground before we can get to it with the header. So it's all happening. I've got to go and empty a grain bin ready to take to the paddock now so we'll have enough room to store all these peas before we can deliver them to the port.

Let the fun and games begin

Over the past few weeks we have been slowly edging towards harvest. Well a couple of hot days earlier this week has given it the hurry-up and in fact we have made a start. After pulling the New Holland TR88 header out of the shed and getting it all serviced up ready for work we took it over to the canola paddocks that were windrowed a coupla weeks back. After setting up the pick up front for the header, and installing a new air-foil sieve - ideal for handling canola, we pulled the header in to see how it goes. Well it was a bit "experimental" for a start. I had trouble getting the windrows to feed into the front properly, and the stone trap was tripping open all the time - and we weren't even picking up stones. A header is a complex machine, with many settings and adjustments that have to be set just right so it works at it's optimum. Well it took me a while to get those settings just right. Once I was happy that it was going to reap relatively successfully I left my brother and my old man to it and went of to service and prepare other vehicles for harvest. I'm in the process of getting the Kenworth ready. She got an oil and filter change, plus new mudflaps, and I would have had her all ready to go, but I found a few holes the size of 20c pieces in one of her exhausts - not a good thing to have out in a thick stubble on a blazing hot day. So she got to take a trip into town for a new section of exhaust. This mornings job was to head up country to collect a brand new chaser bin - yes it's even shiny still. Normally the reaping would have continued, but with the rain that we've had yesterday we had to stop, and took the opportunity to get the bin. A chaser in is used to empty the header into while the header is still reaping. It saves time during harvest as the header doesn't have to stop and drive over to a stationary field bin to empty its grain box.

Harvest is getting closer and closer

The excitement is building as we slowly edge closer and closer to harvest for 2010. In this area we generally say the average starting date for harvest is the 20th of November. Well that is only a day or two away, but at the moment the crops are no where near ready for reaping. It's going to be at least another week before we get started. There is a reason for this of course. Because we've had such a good growing season with plenty of timely rain fall, and also a very mild finish to the season. The past few weeks have been quite cool and at time wet and this help the crops hang on longer, and hence the heads get plenty of time to fill out properly.

It is also another well known fact that on this farm, and plenty of others I'd say, that no matter when the crops are ripe and ready for harvest, we wont be ready for another few days after that. This year is going to be different. I'm determined! I'm doing all I can to have all our equipment up and running ready to start right on time.

Yesterday I actually finished, yes that's right, finished.. all the spraying for 2010, with the last paddock of peas dessicated. And my determination to be organised for harvest meant that I flushed and rinsed out the boom spray right away, and it has now been put away in the shed for storage over summer.

I also sorted out the batteries for the Kenworth and got her out of the shed, along with the semi-tipper, ready to get going for harvest.

I've got engine servicing to do now and fitting all the guards and parts to the header before I'll be ready to start. I should have enough to keep me busy for the next week or so leading up to harvest.

Harvest is just aound the corner now

Now that we are a week or so into the month of November... or MOvember as it is affectionately known now, where thousands of men across Australia, including myself, focus their attention on the cultivation of their perfect "Mo" (mostasche) to raise money and awareness for  mens issues such as prostate cancer and depression in males, farmers in our area are turning their attention to the pending harvest.  within a week or two headers (also known as combine harvesters) will be cranking up all over the place to take this years harvest off. It is an exciting time, with all the signs of being a bumper crop, but also means that preparations for harvest need to be thorough.  Nothing worse than having the perfect conditions to reap a bumper crop but having equipment broken down due to poor maintenance.  So the current jobs include servicing and lubricating the header and truck and any other vehicles that we'll be using.  Also getting fire prepared, setting up fire fighting units on utes and making sure all fire extinguishers are operational.  As far as crops go the final preparations are being made to the canola and pea crops.  As we speak our contractor,Joel, is out windrowing the canola.  Windrowing is cutting down the crop, in this case canola, into rows ready for reaping.  The reason for windrowing is to protect the crop from wind which will blow the seeds out onto the ground.  We are also dessicating the peas.  Dessication is the process of spraying out knockdown herbicide to finish off the peas, and also to eliminate any unwanted weeds, particularly rye grass, to prevent them from setting seed.  I'm also finishing off a few sheep jobs, such as sending the ol' ewes off to market, too before we're completely tied up with harvest.

Every now and then a farmer gets crook

It is generally accepted that farmers work every single day of the week, and only stop to eat, sleep or for church on sunday... and alot of the time we don't even stop for those things. As for getting sick.. well there is no time for sickness on the farm, and a farmer would have to be on their deathbed before they took time off because they were crook. Well that was my day on Tuesday. I must have picked up some kind of stomach wog so, as you can imagine, the day was not pleasant. Another unique character trait of a farmer is their amazing ability to bounce back and get back into it. So the next day it was business as usual.

One of the jobs I got out of the way was to finally get my air seeder bar put away in the shed. Also got myself all organised for MOvember... pictures will be posted later.

Busy down on the farm

Spring is well and truly upon us now and so we starting to look down the barrel towards harvest now, and there's plenty of jobs that go along with getting organised for that.

I'm happy to say that all the spraying is out the way now. All the herbicides, fungicides, fertilizers and insecticides have all been sprayed out, including spraytopping all the pastures so that no weeds are able to set viable seed that will germinate next year.

Shearing is all done and dusted, with the shearing shed all cleaned up and the wool bales sent off to be sold.

While I'm on the topic of sheep, today is a very special day for the sheep on the farm, and particularly the rams. Over the past few days I have been sorting out all the ewes into their breeding mobs (we have 4 different mobs of ewes), and culling out the ewes I want to sell. They've been moved into the paddocks that they will stay on over the summer harvest, and the water troughs have been checked to make sure they will have plenty of water to drink. And today was the day that we sorted the rams, which form a little mob of their own for most of the year, and divided them up to go do what they do best. Yep, today they were put in the paddocks with the ewes for mating... see I told you... spring has really sprung!

For the next few weeks harvest preparation will be the main job on the agenda, and I have already organised a few things including some modifications to the TR88 harvester and pea plucker, and also some new equipment including shiny new field bins (bins to store grain in before we can deliver it to our local port).

2 x 360bag Sharman multi-bins (they have a high cone so they can hold grain or fertilizer)

Images from the Shearing Shed

Here's just a little colliection of pictures taken in our shearing shed. The sheep waiting in the pens ready for shearing

The two shearers working at their stands shearing the sheep

Freshly shorn fleeces on the floor ready to be taken away to be skirted (sorted)

wool that's been sorted into different bins

more wool in bins

the wool table before the fleece is thrown onto it

and after the fleece is thrown onto it ready for skirting

the wool press with skirted fleeces in it ready for pressing into bales

finished wool bales straight out of the press, branded and ready to go on the truck to the wool stores

a well worn shearers hand piece connected to the down tube

this is a comb. a comb attatces to the hand piece and combs through the sheeps wool as the cutter moves from side to side across the teeth of the comb to cut the wool off

This is an old cutter, also attaches to the hand piece and cuts the wool off

and here are the sheep after shearing in the counting out pens

Hello ladies, hope you enjoyed getting your hair done

Shearing Again

We've finally had a few good days for spraying. Very little wind, and very little rain, so I have been able to get out there and get stuck into it. So much so that I have actually finished all my broadleaf weed spraying - I'm finally catching up a little bit. I did notice, though, that a few of the late barley crops were a little nitrogen deficient. I did run out of UAN (the nitrogen fertilizer that is in liquid form) a few weeks back, so I haven't been able to keep the fertilizer flowing, and in fact the whole state of South Australia had run out, so we were in a bit of a pickle. It's all good now though, we had a load delivered here on farm yesterday. We have a bulk UAN tank set up and a B-double can just come in and unload into the tank.

Having said that, I haven't been able to start the UAN spraying again because we started our September shearing today. Our shed is a two stand shearing shed - that means it has two shearing plants the drive the shearers hand pieces, so basically we can have two shearers shearing at the same time. The shearers hand piece has a comb and a cutter attached to it. The comb combs through the sheep's wool as the cutter moves across the combs teeth and cuts the wool as it moves backward and forwards. After the fleece has been shorn off, and the sheep is out the door, the wool is thrown up onto the wool table for sorting. From there it goes into a wool press and pressed into bales.

This shearing we have about 700 big sheep to do, that is ewes, wethers and hoggets. Also about 500 lambs and 10 Rams. So I think we'll be looking at about 1 full week of shearing, that's provided the woolly sheep dont get rained on - as sheep cant be shorn if they have wet wool.

Another Inch of rain

Things are looking fantastic on the farm now. As the weather starts to warm up a little the crops are really starting to take off now. The canola is basically out in full flower, so we have two bright yellow paddocks out there, and all of the cereals are really thickening up now with flag leaf emergence just around the corner. At this stage we need to keep an eye on them for fungal diseases that can effect them.

Earlier this week we had another 27mm of rain, that's just over the inch in the old scale, bringing the total for September so far up over 80mm - just the kind of rainfall that steers us towards a bumper crop.

It also means more delays to the spraying program. I'm still trying to get broadleaf weeds sprayed out of the cereal crops. I just have the barley to do (which will take a few good days mind you).

Our September shearing is fast approaching. In the last week of September we shear our main mobs of sheep. Although I don't have time to do this and should be pushing on with spraying, I still need to. So yesterday we spent a day with the sheep in the yards sorting them all out. We had to wien the lambs from the ewes, draught the wethers out of the ewes and move them into holding paddocks until it's time to shear them.

Today the weather is fine so it's back to the spraying for me.

and the rain just keeps coming

Well spring has sprung and the months of September and October are really important for the growing crops. They need plenty of rain during this time because now that it will start warming up they will really do a lot of growing. Fortunately we have had a really good start to spring with about two and a half inches of rain coming down in the first few days of the month. So far this season is looking as good as any I can remember as far as rainfall goes, and if it keeps up we'll certainly be heading towards a bumper crop.

I know I've mentioned before that the spraying program has been interrupted by the inclement weather, well, as you could imagine, two and a half inches of rain had also put a bit of a dampener on the spraying. Any chance I get I will be out there on the spray tractor trying to catch up a little. It's a good thing that once I get going and can get a fair bit of spraying done fairly quickly.

The current spray job is to control the broadleaf weeds in cereal crops. A couple of chemicals that I'm using are - metsulphuron and LVE680 (low volatile ester 680g/l). I'm also throwing in a few trace elements, copper zinc and um... magnesium I think - just keeps the crops nice and healthy.