Pickin' and Grinnin': 2019 Corn Harvest

This sign shows the scale operator at the co-op which field this truckload is from.

Noun
pickin' and grinnin'
1. (chiefly US, music, idiomatic) Vigorous playing of folk or country music on a stringed musical instrument, especially the guitar or banjo, while smiling broadly.

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Are we picking corn or cutting corn? That is the question.

I fall back on my wheat harvest terminology and say we are "cutting corn." My Farmer says that there just might be an old fella or two at Joan's Cafe who would correct me. They are of the "corn picking" vernacular.

No matter how you say it, we are in the midst of corn harvest. (I think my "corn harvest" semantics will please all "cutting" and "picking" camps.)

The jury is still out as to whether we are really grinnin' about the 2019 corn harvest yields. 

For one thing, we have large mudholes where we were unable to plant corn this spring. (If you're a regular reader, you will know that we planted more corn because we were unable to plant wheat last fall due to overwhelming rainfall. It remained wet through the spring.)

However, as is the farmer's lament, temperatures soared about the time the corn was filling, and we didn't get rain in time on some of the fields. So, as I said, the jury is still out on yields.

Our combine has an eight-row header. (In the photo below, you can't see all eight rows.)

I think they look a little like missiles as they move down between the rows. The corn ears are pulled off the corn stalk and are dragged into the combine with rollers. Inside the combine, the corn kernels are separated from the husks and cobs. Then the cobs and debris are dispersed out the back of the combine.

 Once the combine bin gets full ...

... it's time to dump it into the truck. Many farmers have a grain cart pulled by a tractor to do this step, but we unload from the combine directly into the truck.

You can see the entire combine header in the photo above.

One day last week, I went along with Randy to Zenith to deliver a load of corn.

Back when I was a teenage wheat truck driver, I used to carefully apply my blue eye shadow before I made my trips from the field to the Iuka Co-op.

 

Who knew what cute teenage boy truck drivers I might see as I was untarping the truck?

I guess I did find my cute truck driver. It just took me a few years.

It's definitely a different perspective to be rolling down the Zenith road in a semi, rather than my low-slung car.  

Photo taken another day

Once we arrived at Zenith, Randy untarped the semi.

Once we weighed on at the scale house, we went to dump the grain, this time, at the outside pit.

Photo from 2015 - headed to the outside dump location

 And I took more photos from a different perspective than I normally get. (Big surprise, right?)

 

 After we were empty, we weighed back on at the scale house ...

... where we picked up the ticket, before driving back to the field to do it all over again.

 

Yes, I was the truck driver for many years - both growing up and after I married Randy. And yes, I could learn to drive the semi if needed. So far, my services have not been required.

I know a lot of farm wives love driving the combine. But at this point in my life, I will leave that job to the guy who's been doing it since high school. Even though we bought the combine at a farm auction used, we are still paying for it. I'll leave it to my cute driver to operate the high-dollar equipment. I'm good going along for the ride.

Photo through the dirty windshield!

Corny As Kansas in August

Walking through a corn field these days is starting to sound like you're shaking cornflakes from the cardboard cereal box into a bowl.

Our 2019 corn crop is beginning to dry down. There's still plenty of green, but it's losing its lush, verdant color as it transitions toward harvest.

A corn field nearing harvest looks like it needs an airbrush before a beauty shot. In contrast, I think a wheat field looks pretty from start to finish ... well, except if it gets hailed on or a combine is stuck in the field. OK, I guess there are exceptions to every generalization. But, by the time the corn crop is ready to combine, those dried out leaves and husks just don't look that appealing from afar.

Last week, we tested moisture on some fields to see if the moisture was right for transporting to Haw Ranch Feedlot near Turon. While traditional co-op elevators want moisture content at around 16 or below, the feedlot wanted high-moisture corn - grain between 24 to 32 percent moisture.

Randy hand-shelled some kernels, choosing a couple of cobs from stalks that looked more dried down. He put them in the moisture tester while I held on to the canister to prevent spills.

The drier cobs' moisture tested at 18.0.

He then tried a couple of cobs from stalks still showing more green. However, the moisture contest was 21.2, so it was still too dry for the feedlot and not yet dry enough for the co-op. 

We had been missing the rains that had zigzagged across Kansas in the past week or so. However, on Saturday night into Sunday morning, we got 2.90" of rain. It filled the mudholes back up, and it will put the 2019 corn harvest on hold for awhile longer. (But the rain was great for sudan and milo. We hope it will help boost the third cutting of alfalfa, too.)

The prevented planting of wheat acres meant an increase to those we devoted to corn on the County Line this year.

Photo taken August 2 - If you compare how brown the field is now, you can see how much it's dried down this month.

The countdown - and dry down - continues. Planting date makes a difference.

Both the following photos were taken on Friday, August 23.

The field in the photo above was planted a week before the field in the photo below. It's the same variety of corn, so the week difference in planting date is definitely evident. The fields are about 2 miles apart, so there could be a slight difference in rainfall, but not appreciable.

Let's hope this year's corn story has a happy ending!