Kim's County Line: And That's a Wrap: Harvest 2021

The sun has set on Wheat Harvest 2021. We cut the final 20 acres of wheat on Monday afternoon. It was at a location that had more rain, and we were trying to avoid getting stuck on the soggy ground. (It's always an additional success when we don't have to call a Caterpillar tractor to pull us out of a "sticky" situation, like in 2019).

On one of my combine rides after a supper delivery last week, I couldn't resist a photo of the sunset glow in the neighbor's soybean field. To me, it also illustrates the nature of farming. While one crop is being harvested, another grows. (There's probably a lesson for life there, too.)

View from the wheat truck

And, as usual, harvest efforts have been a combination of sunshine and rain, mechanical problems and everything in between.

But it's always good to look back. It's part of moving forward.

Our start date - June 17 - seems so long ago. It's always interesting to see how start and end dates compare from year to year. Here are the stats since I began blogging:

2010: June 18
2011: June 10
2012: May 26 (an anomaly and the earliest harvest, by far, we've ever had)
2013: June 21
2014: June 17
2015: June 20
2016: June 15
2017: June 12
2018: June 12
2019: June 26
2020: June 16

2021: June 17

The finish dates are all over the board in the past dozen years, too:

2010: June 25

2011: June 20

2012: June 9 (an anomaly)

2013: July 6

2014: July 7

2015: July 1

2016: July 13

2017: June 28

2018: June 29

2019: July 22

2020: July 7

2021: July 12

Yield averages in the years since I've been blogging have been:

2010: 37.2 bu/acre

2011: 36.7 bu/acre

2012: 45.5 bu/acre

2013: 52 bu/acre

2014: 24.5 bu/acre

2015: 50 bu/acre

2016: 48.5 bu/acre

2017: 50.84 bu/acre

2018: 39.2 bu/acre

2019: 23.6 bu/acre

2020: 49.5 bu/acre

2021: 58 bu/acre

In 2021, our high yield was 86 bushels per acre. Our low was 31. As Randy says, he's "exceptionally happy." It's our highest overall yield ever.

October 2020 - filling the drill while planting wheat

The 2021 wheat crop began last September 21, 2020, when we began planting this year's crop. He finished up on October 6. For the 2021 crop year, 1,486 of our acres were devoted to wheat.

Really, the journey toward planting the 2021 crop started with the 2020 harvest, when we binned seed wheat - Bob Dole and Zenda - to use for this year. I blogged about taking seed wheat to Miller Seed Farm to be cleaned here.

It went back into our home bins until we were ready to plant it last September/October.

I also made the annual trek to Miller Seed Farm to pick up bags of certified wheat seed. The bags were planted for seed wheat for the 2022 crop.

Here are a few other photos of the wheat crop as it grew:

We had an early snowfall on October 26.

I included a wheat update in this post right before Thanksgiving 2020.

Here was the wheat field (and a pretty sky) on January 23.

The wheat field - and a visitor - were pictured on March 1 (with a blog post here.)

It's amazing how quickly the wheat begins to grow in the spring. By May 1, it looked like this:

On May 4, Kanza Co-op applied fungicide to our wheat crop. That decision paid off this year.

By May 10, it was pollinating:

We began cutting June 17 this year and were delayed by breakdowns and weather. (Such is the life of a farm family.) But we were thrilled to have our whole family here June 18-20.

Harvest 2021

In March 2020, just as the pandemic began, Randy and I were installed as presidents of our respective branches of the Kansas Master Farmer/Homemaker organization. Because of Covid, the officers (including us) kept our offices for another year. So, in mid-June, I wrote my (our) second summer letter to our membership.

I began the letter with a quote from author and evangelist Vance Havner:

God uses broken things. It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength.

I used this photo from the 2020 wheat harvest as the letterhead and then referred to it in the text of the letter:

I get devotionals in my email inbox daily, but on occasion, I save one. I suppose Vance Havner’s quote resonated with me because of my lifelong connection to Kansas farming, first as a farm daughter in Pratt County, and now as a farm partner on the Stafford/Reno County line.

Likewise, as an amateur photographer, I’ve discovered that clouds punctuating an evening sky yield the best sunsets. Case in point was this favorite photo from wheat harvest 2020, when the setting sun burst through the western sky. A “broken” sky produces a much more dramatic end to the day than a cloudless evening. ...

... As I write this, we have just started wheat harvest on our farm on the Stafford/Reno County line. It’s always an exciting – yet challenging -- time. There have already been “broken things” that we’d rather not experience. (The guys at Case know me on a first-name basis. I’m sure the same can be said for many of you at the parts store of your choice!) But “breaking” that finish line as the last truckload rumbles to the elevator is always a good feeling, too. Here’s wishing the best to you and yours as you accomplish this summer’s tasks on the farm.

Harvest 2021

Farmers and ranchers are essential workers. And, even if the world and the way we do things had to evolve, it was still a blessing to do the work that our ancestors have been doing for five generations in Kansas.