Harvest

[Illinois Farmer]

Hey,
I just finished up combining wheat today, and was wondering what jobs others are accomplishing like spraying, bailing, or harvesting?

[DirectCedar]

Hey,
I just finished up combining wheat today, and was wondering what jobs others are accomplishing like spraying, bailing, or harvesting?

You mean in real life? I finished spraying almost a month ago and my grain farm does not have much other fieldwork needing done before fall now. It has finally stopped raining in the last two days and a few neighbours with hay have started cutting the very nice hay crop hoping that the forecast for a week of sun is correct. Cereal crop silage will start around the area in approximately 3 weeks. My own next job will be pre-harvest spraying peas and swathing barley around the same time. Both should hopefully be ready to combine the last week in August. After that will be wheat and canola harvest and finally flax.

Or did you mean in FS land? Haven't done anything there for a while because I don't spend much time inside in the summer

[Illinois Farmer]

Sorry, yes I meant in real life. That's awesome you and others are able to get with done after the rain has stopped. We had extreme heat last week, and then my grandpa pressed away so thursday and today was first time he didn't combine the wheat since 1983. We sprayed our hay so next week or the week after we will bale 3rd crop and we r thinking about spraying fungicide. Any thoughts in that?

[DirectCedar]

There is some fungicide going on around here like there usually is this time of year, but it's not universal. If I had to guess I would peg it at about half the crop. A lot of the peas get sprayed, and a varying proportion of the cereals and canola. I've tried it a bit over the years on just about every crop and I have not found it to be a universally good investment. Often it pays back the chemical cost and your spraying cost but not much more. On a wet summer like this it likely would have had a better return but there's something to be said in my opinion for leaving the sprayer parked and not risking the cash on the chemical and just enjoying your summer too

How many cuts of hay do you normally expect? Is it mostly grass or is there alfalfa or clover or other legumes grown for hay as well?

[Illinois Farmer]

Thanks for your input. A lot of guys around here are spraying and spray their wheat. I agree with what you said. We usually don't spray fungicide on the corn but I think we will on half this year just because it was so wet and saw tar spot last year. We usually get 4, but sometimes 5. Our hay is alfalfa and Timothy. We plant oats with it at first and then get the hay field for 4 to 5 years after we harvest the oats.

[DirectCedar]

Thanks for your input. A lot of guys around here are spraying and spray their wheat. I agree with what you said. We usually don't spray fungicide on the corn but I think we will on half this year just because it was so wet and saw tar spot last year. We usually get 4, but sometimes 5. Our hay is alfalfa and Timothy. We plant oats with it at first and then get the hay field for 4 to 5 years after we harvest the oats.

That is a similar hay regime to here, minus the 4-5 cuts Grass hay here is often only 1 cut in mid-late July, or straight alfalfa or alfalfa-grass mix is two, or very rarely three cuts. Ideally alfalfa is cut late June, then about 1st August, then 1st September on the occasional years it is looking like a long fall and we have had a wet August. However usually the third cut is not feasible. I think in the 15 or so years of my life that we grew alfalfa we had a third cut once. Greenfeed cover crop to establish alfalfa the first year is also common here, although probably barley is more common than oats.

Sorry about your grandpa. My own last grandpa had his last harvest in 2002 before his knees got so bad he could not get in and out of the combine, before passing away in 2004. I am not exactly sure of the year (quite a bit before my time) but I suspect his first harvest in the combine would have been in the early 50s, possibly when the first combine arrived on the farm to replace the threshing machine. I have many wonderful childhood memories of riding in the combine with him in the early 80s.

[Guil]

Moved to off topic as this is not directly related to the game.

[Illinois Farmer]

Direct,
Our first cut is yearly around memorial day (end of may), then we were around the 4th of July this year and this cutting everything looks green and growing really well after we sprayed it. Our last cutting will be around September. I'm sure you have great memories of your grandpa. He is always with you when driving the combine. Last fall, mine was 85 and still drove the combine for most of the harvest.

[DirectCedar]

Direct,
Our first cut is yearly around memorial day (end of may), then we were around the 4th of July this year and this cutting everything looks green and growing really well after we sprayed it. Our last cutting will be around September. I'm sure you have great memories of your grandpa. He is always with you when driving the combine. Last fall, mine was 85 and still drove the combine for most of the harvest.

I was wondering how long we could continue talking about actual farming before we got moved

What did you spray the hay with? Pre-harvest glyphosate before you take it out?

Agreed about the combine... it's remarkable how harvest is such a family affair and creates so many associated memories. I used the American 1660 mod in FS17 and the first time I turned on the cab view it hit me like a brick how much the details of the cab took me right back to riding in there with my Grandpa thirty years ago... I could almost feel myself sitting on the little bench beside him again I had the same reaction when playing with the Old Iron 1086 mod - I recognized every detail of the cab from the thousand or so hours I spent on the bench in the back window behind my dad.

[Illinois Farmer]

Yeah, I forgot about the off-topic thread, oh well. We sprayed insecticide. The Asian Beatles and hay aphids were thick and turn the alfalfa yellow. Plus, the second cutting hit affected by them too, so we didn't get very much only like 400 small squares. I bet it does. I play on console and don't remember those mods, but the in game 8r and 6r cab are very close to what we have here. It helps the 6r was made in Germany, but the loader was made in mexico and it got put together in dixon, il ha.

[Illinois Farmer]

Well getting the first day of silage harvest done. Last week combined 100 day corn that had 24% percent moisture and yielded about 330 so about 280 plus dry.

[Farmercaseih]

I'm in Illinois too but we won't start corn until mid october

[Illinois Farmer]

We planted ours in April and it is earlier corn since we need it for the hogs.

[DirectCedar]

Harvest is generally a disaster here in central Alberta. Crop was approximately three weeks late going into fall after a record cool and rainy summer. September has been a wreck with rain every few days and very little heat.

Most of the peas in the district are off and most were tough (which is very rare; peas are usually off dry dry dry in mid-August) but there are still a visible portion out presently being rained on. Maybe half the barley is off and very little wheat and practically no canola. Normally by this time of year harvest is close to wrapping up. I am presently sitting at 15% complete which anecdotally seems representative of a large surrounding area.

We slugged away in 21% barley until it started raining 2am Wed night and I was able to get it all through the dryer yesterday when the rain let up. The truck has 5t of mud on it and the road was so bad by the end I was down to 30kph and nearly stuck in the middle of the grade in a few places.

October weather is extremely risky in this part of the world and the risk of permanent snow gets worse every day now. The outlook is generally pretty dire here at the moment. This is the latest crop combined with the worst September that most can remember.

[Illinois Farmer]

Wow, hopefully you guys can get everything done. We prolly won't get much done this next week as it is supposed to rain already everyday.