The
Very Busy Time of Year
Fall harvest for me is very different than the summer wheat
harvest. For one thing
every acre I cut is within 40 miles of my place and 95% is with in
20 miles of my place. That means I sleep in the same bed in
the same place every night. The other thing, I just have one full
time hired man. Many
times the college age boys that helped me in the summer come out on
Saturdays and Marty my oldest son helps a lot when he gets off work
and on Saturdays. The
reason I do not need to much help in the fall is that every farmer I
cut for with the exception of one or two does their own
hauling. That does make
it a lot simpler for me but it also cuts down on almost half the
revenue. With the
traditionally higher yields of the fall crops compared to wheat it
is important to have a good grain cart driver. That’s where my part time
help is able to help me the most.
Fall Harvest Report 2001
About a week or so after we got home from
Tribune I was sitting in the bathroom, reading the FASTLINE
magazine, custom harvesters are known for their ability to
multitask, and I saw that Radke Implement had two 1998, 2388
combines that were equipped pretty much like I would want them if I
was thinking about trading for some. You noticed I said, if I was
thinking about trading, I have traded combines one other time
between wheat harvest and fall harvest, but that is not normally the
time I like to trade.
But since I didn’t have anything better to do at the time,
and since I had my cell phone in the bathroom with me I decided to
give Harlan a call to get more details. This is the same place I
traded last time so I was familiar with the dealership and the way
they do business. I was a little concerned when he told me how many
hours they had, but otherwise they sounded like they might be the
kind of machines I could use. I set a day and a time with Harlan
that I would go and look at his combines.
Two days
later I got in my pick-up and drove to Milberger, Kansas home of
Radke Implement. What,
you never heard of Milberger, Kansas? Well most people haven’t
unless they bought a combine there any time in the last fifty
years. Milberger is
three miles west of Hi-way 281 on a dirt road about 35 miles north
of Great Bend. That
makes it exactly 100 miles from my place, just far enough away so I
don’t have their combine sales man driving on my yard three times
every year trying to trade combines with me. Milberger consists of two
metal buildings, that’s Radke Implement, and then I think there are
two or three houses there also. Although they are in the
middle of nowhere, they have sold hundreds of combines the last
fifty years, and many to return customers.
Any way
when I got there and looked at the combines that I talked to Harlan
about on the phone I could see that they had been “run hard and put
away wet” and it would be impossible to do all the repairs on them
before the fall harvest would be ready. Harlan then told me that he
had two 2000 2388s that were twins and had less then 150 hours on
them. He said, “I ‘m
sure you’ll like them much better”. I said, “I’m sure I will,
but I doubt that my banker will”. These two combines needed
nothing done to them except an oil change and they were “like
new”. After some
negotiating I made a deal that I felt my banker and I could live
with and most importantly one that would make Mary happy. Remember, “Keep Mary happy,
and make Keith rich”.
I
have one large farmer that I cut for in the McPherson
area. I usually have
one combine on his place nearly full time from the beginning of
harvest till the last day and the other combine on the other smaller
farms. I usually run
the combine that’s running for the large farmer and my neighbor
Richard Stucky is kind enough to run the other one for me on the
smaller farms.
This year
fall harvest started on the 8th of August. That is by far the earliest
I have ever started.
Good thing I didn’t go to South Dakota this year to cut
wheat. The first thing
I cut with my new combines was, sunflowers. A few days after the flowers
were cut some dry land corn was ready. By the 25th of
August we were going full swing in irrigated corn, a full ten days
ahead of normal. I have
very seldom cut irrigated corn in August. By mid September most of the
corn had already been cut and we were going strong in irrigated
soybeans and early milo.
By mid October we were in the winding down stage of
harvest. That means all
the nice fields had been cut and we were dealing with a few small
ugly weedy patches of dry land soybeans and double crop
milo.
By the
way if I were to ask any of you where you were, and what you were
doing on the morning of September 11th most of you would
know exactly. I was at
the elevator in one of my trucks waiting in line to unload a load of
corn when the country music playing on the radio was interrupted
with the news of the attack on the W.T.C. All day long I listened to
the news reports on the radio in the combine and it only got
worse. What a terrible
day for our country.
As for
the yields of the crops in this area, the extreme heat and lack of
rain in July, took a heavy toll on all the dry land crops. The sunflowers that we cut
were light and low in oil content. The dry land corn & milo
yields were 30-50 bu., about 40 % of the last few years. The dry
land soybeans were 5-15 bu., about 30% of previous years. For me the irrigated corn
was the bright spot of the fall harvest. Most of it was far enough
along when it got so hot in July that it didn’t hurt it any. It only made it mature
faster. I cut several
fields that were right at 200 bu. per acre and most of it was in the
175 bu. range. That’s
pretty good for this area.
I think the heat hurt the irrigated soybeans some too. Most of the irrigated beans
were 45-55 bu. I usually cut some 60 bu. beans and I didn’t cut any
this year. I haven’t
got quite all the totals in yet, but we cut about 250 acres more
than last year, most of that was added acres by the large farmer by
McPherson. I think the
number of bushels will be very close to last year, but the average
yield will be down in every thing but the irrigated corn.
We
had one very welcome three-day rain delay in late September. The rain wasn’t welcomed for
the harvesting but we sure did need it for planting the wheat. I cut the last double crop
milo field on October 30th. The next day I officially
closed the 2001 Harvest season by washing the combines, and in 70
degree warm weather. Very unusual!
Oh
yeah, the new combines, they ran flawlessly.
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