What does it take to get that loaf of bread into your hands? Wheat grown by a farmer is ground into flour and used to make that bread. Rewind the process and you begin with a wheat seed. Wheat is the cornerstone of many of the world’s most basic foods. This spring I decided to start a new blog series called Follow the field. I’ve been following one of my family’s wheat fields from seeding to harvest. On the farm we name all our fields for identification purposes and because it’s easier to give directions to that particular field. The field I’m following is the Giesbrecht field located near Snowflake, Man., only a few miles from the North Dakota border. The purpose of this blog series is to educate readers who aren’t familiar with the process. So please join me on this journey… from field to fork.
In spring I wrote about Seeding, followed about a month later by a post on Spraying. Click here to read the blog post on Seeding and here to read the post on Spraying, if you missed them. Today I’m going to write about Harvesting, the time of year when farmers finally reap the rewards of months of hard work. Harvest is like Christmas for farmers. They wait all year for the harvest just as a child awaits Christmas. And just like a child at Christmastime, sometimes farmers are happy with their crops (presents) and sometimes they’re disappointed. But regardless, harvest (and Christmas) arrives every year.
The wheat is harvested with our big combines (see photos below). The combines go up and down the rows filling their hoppers with wheat. When the hopper is full, the combines dump the wheat into either the grain cart pulled by a tractor or the grain truck. The wheat is then transported to the grain bin where it is stored until it is sold.
If you have any questions about the wheat harvest, please let me know. I’m happy to answer your questions. Thank you for reading this blog series!
Rural Route Ramblings 
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