Wheat Harvest

The wheat harvest started here last week. As people just started really getting into the swing of things it rained early this morning, so cutting has been suspended for right now. You can't cut wheat when the wheat or ground is too wet. The combine has to be able to separate the grains from the head and chaff and it can't do that when the wheat is wet, also called "tough".

This is a grain cart. Farmers empty the wheat from their combines into it while they are still cutting the wheat. Otherwise, they would have to stop the combine and empty. It sounds a little unnessary, but when you are trying to get the wheat out of the field, every minute counts. Time is money, as they say. Then, when the grain cart is full, it empty's into the wheat truck. Corey, my sister Monica's boyfriend, is driving this grain cart. I was shooting pics unbeknownst to him. He thought he had a stalker!

When the wheat truck is full they drive it to the elevator. This truck is pulling away from the scales. Before the wheat gets dumped into the elevator, the truck has to stop and get weighed. The truck's empty weight is subtracted from it's full weight and that is how much wheat the farmer is credited. Now other tests are done on the wheat at this point. Moisture and quality of the grain is checked, and the farmer can get docked on the price if his quality is down. This wheat truck is a really old truck often seen around here. They also use semi's as in the picture below.
These semi's are lined up to dump their wheat in the local elevator.

The last time I checked (last week) wheat was above $8 a bushel, which is good, but fuel prices have offset much of the gains.