The 21st: A Look Each Month at the 2022 Wheat Crop

 

Good ideas are worth emulating. (That's a better word than stealing, don't you think?)

During the last growing season, Stafford County Flour Mills posted a monthly update on the wheat crop to its Facebook page. The mill - which is located in Hudson, Kansas, in our home county - produces Hudson Cream Flour. (It's the best flour there is, if you need a testimonial. They also have a Hudson Cream Flour Baking page on Facebook. Check it out!)

As I said, good ideas are worth appropriating. Since our 2022 wheat crop will be our final one as active farmers, I decided to do something similar with wheat blog posts this year.

 We began planting wheat on September 21, 2021, so I decided to use the 21st of every month for my "wheat report" photos from now until harvest. (Now I just need to remember on the right day!)

A month later, we were STILL planting wheat after several rain delays. 

October 21, 2021

But most of our earlier planted wheat had come up and was thriving.

I went to another field that we'd planted following corn harvest. On October 21, there were some volunteer corn plants coming up among the wheat. 

A freeze will "zap" the corn, and it will no longer be viable. But the wheat is designed to survive the winter. 

 

Our friend, Rex, ended up helping us finish wheat planting. Our hired man quit during the planting season. Rex retired earlier this year, so Randy put his childhood friend to work driving the disc tractor ahead of the drill.

Rex grew up on a farm, but took a different career path. But he was back in the tractor seat for us last week. We paid him in home-cooked lunches (besides the check).

Rex was Randy's best man 40 years ago. It's good to have friends like that.

I decided to try and take a sunset photo on the 21st of each month, too. (Two things to remember ... probably not the smartest move.)

After Randy finished planting the first time around on October 22, he decided to replant a portion of a field. On October 23, we finally finished ... we think.

You can see that there's still water in the field from the latest rainfall. (We got another inch of rain yesterday, October 27.)

Randy said the time it took to get the wheat crop planted "drove him to drink." (It's water, people!)

Stay tuned for more updates on the 2022 wheat crop, with photos taken on the 21st of each month. 

True confessions: These final three photos were actually on October 23, 2021, when we finished planting.

Bob Dole's Chauffeur

I was Bob Dole's chauffeur on Tuesday.

Before anyone thinks I've suddenly begun Ubering former presidential candidates in my spare time, I should probably confess that the Bob Dole I was carting around was actually 50 bags of Bob Dole seed wheat.

 

I made a couple of trips to Miller Seed Farm on Tuesday. Bob Dole was my first passenger. On the second trip, I picked up 50 bags of Zenda seed wheat.

Randy started planting wheat on September 25.

There are four zones of ideal planting in Kansas. Romulo Lollato, K-State Extension wheat specialist, has done research and concluded that sowing date plays a major role in crop yields. Planting after recommended dates can mean a whopping decrease in yields of up to 3.5 bushels an acre per day.

• Zone 1: Sept. 10-30
• Zone 2: Sept. 15 to Oct. 20
• Zone 3: Sept. 25 to Oct. 20
• Zone 4: Oct. 5-25

Since we live in Zone 3, our start date falls within the recommendation.

Randy saved two varieties of wheat during our 2019 harvest - Larry and Zenda - and that is the wheat we started drilling this fall.  We binned some of the wheat as we were harvesting this summer in our on-farm storage. Later, we took the retained wheat to Miller Seed Farm for cleaning and seed treatment.

It went back in our home bins until we were ready to plant. It is augered out of the truck into the drill boxes. The wheat we save at harvest can only be used by our farm.

This year, we are planting 1,575 acres to wheat which will be harvested in 2020 (if all goes as planned).

This is the first time we've "invited" Bob Dole to our farm. It's a new wheat variety developed by Kansas State University and released in a public-private partnership between Syngenta and Kansas wheat farmers through the Kansas Wheat Commission and Kansas Wheat Alliance. The hard red winter wheat variety, which is distributed by Agri-Pro, was first introduced in Kansas during the 2018 season.

We always plant seed wheat in fields closer to the on-farm storage bins. Before Randy puts the bagged seed wheat in the drill, he cleans out the other seed. He starts baling it out with an old coffee can and ends up using a shop vacuum to get the rest.

While Randy planted the Bob Dole wheat, I went back to Miller Seed Farm for our other seed wheat variety - Zenda. It was released in 2017 by the Kansas Wheat Alliance.

 New varieties of wheat are developed in efforts to resist disease and improve yields.

About the time Randy got done loading the Zenda into the drill, it began raining.We've gotten about 0.60" in the past couple of days, so wheat planting is shut down for the time being.

The newly-emerging wheat that was put in the ground a week ago is loving this moisture.

Piercing the Worry

A glimpse of the morning sky had me grabbing my camera and taking off down the road for photos. The first stop was my sunrise tree, where the tapestry of sky almost made me ignore how much water is still in the fields. Almost. But there's still some water in the road, and the neighbor's mudhole reflected  a sliver of the morning sky.

As the sun creased the horizon, I hurried down the road to take some photos of the milo field we still need to cut. Those photos weren't all that memorable. I didn't like them with the flash any better.

But then I noticed a single jet stream creasing the sky like a bullet. Though you can't tell from the photo, the rising sun glinted off the underbelly of the jet plane. And I thought about the Plains' reputation as a flyover country. I wondered if those passengers were looking at the patchwork of water-logged fields below, watching the sunrise from their perch in the heavens, or whether they had their heads buried in a book or an in-flight movie or were still snoozing. 

But then I thought about all they were missing. I admit it. The last few weeks have been challenging. Thirteen inches of rain brought farming to a halt for three weeks during the busy time of fall harvest and wheat planting. Like the deep ruts that were left behind by flood waters coursing over dirt roads and through culverts and making rivets in fields, the rain gouged our hearts and minds with worry about getting everything done.

Then, last week, after only two days of trying to plant wheat again, we got another inch of rain, bringing our grand total to 14 inches. Randy got back onto the field again Monday to try and beat the October 31 deadline for planting wheat.

On a crisp fall morning, I tried to recognize how much I should be thankful for.

The other side of the sunrise brought morning's first light to a neighbor's mowed hunting trail.

It kissed the tops of hay bales in a CRP field just north of our house.

A week ago, I left just as the sun was rising to go to a meeting in Hutchinson. There was a thin layer of fog hanging in the air on this windless start to the day. I couldn't resist stopping to click a few photos. And, yes, I still made it on time to the meeting.

I have to admit that I've been in a fog of doubt the past few weeks. And, I'd be lying if I said those worries are gone. God doesn't like worrying, but I don't think He's a big fan of lying either.

But just like morning light penetrates fog, I know I have much to be thankful for. I look at the photos of destruction from Hurricane Michael and Hurricane Wilma. I still have a house. I still have power. I am still able to buy fuel or food without waiting in lines caused by a weather-induced shortage. I read Facebook updates from the wife of a young farmer who was critically injured while he was planting wheat last week, and I am thankful that we are just experiencing the aches of pains of our age, rather than mending from a terrible accident.

Am I happy that we'll be spending more money on certified seed wheat to replant seed wheat? No. But I can be happy that we're again able to be in the field planting ... even if Randy has to drive around some mudholes to get it done.

 And there is certainly enough beauty to appreciate.

During my morning walk, the geese call to each other and look like black pepper flakes floating on a soup bowl of bright blue.

That jet stream looks like a row of silver embroidery thread piercing through blue fabric.

And the shelterbelt to the north (the one that hides a secret fairyland ... and skunks) is dressed in its fall best.

All I have to do is open my eyes ... and my heart .. to hope. Maybe the worry can fall away like those autumn leaves. Well, I can pray that happens.

This photo was taken October 3, 2018. Wheat planting has been a marathon.

NOTE: We may not be able to plant 415 acres to wheat that were part of Randy's wheat plan for 2019. More on that in an upcoming blog post. We'll see how that all goes ...  since there are raindrops on the weatherman's map yet again.

Today is Randy's birthday. A blueberry pie is in his future!