Miscellaneous Pictures
2005-6-24
"Lets see, what else has gone wrong today?"
It took over 7 hours to cut 150 acres with 5 combines. Every combine got stuck, some of them more than once. Alex buried the grain cart too and they used a 9420T to pull it out. The wheat is running about 30 bu/ac.
Most of the people up north at the next stop keep calling, asking when they are going to show up. Alex has been cutting right along highway 281, which is a major road for the custom harvesters. He has been seeing a lot of machines move north over the past few days.
2005-6-23
"Just playing in the mud."
The guys have been rolling every day since we spoke last. The pretty much cut from 10:00 am to 3:00 am every day. The weather has been hot, but no rain. Temperatures are in the mid 90s, but that is cooler than expected. There are still 2 good mud holes in every field and they buried about 7 combines yesterday. The boss pretty much spent the whole day pulling machines out. However, so far today, nothing has been stuck.
So far they have cut 8000 - 9000 acres of wheat, and have another 4000 to go before moving north. Figure that each machine can do 125 acres per day since they have to move fields a lot. They should be finished up in 3 to 4 days if the weather holds out that long. Some of the dry-land wheat has been yielding around 80 bu/ac, but some fields are in the 15-20 range. On average, everything is yielding pretty good.
As of right now, there is some local law enforcement sitting in some nearby trees hiding from everyone. They suspect he wants to write tickets for the trucks being overweight or something like that.
2005-6-19
Lance here - Since I spoke to Alex last, they got a total of 5 inches of rain. Even though there is still water standing in the fields, they got back to cutting a couple days ago. On the first day back, Alex did get his combine stuck, but things were worse yesterday. The got 7 combines stuck, even a couple of the machines with duals. The even managed to get one of the grain carts stuck - one that was being pulled by the 8520T.
Alex is now sporting one of the brand new combines of this season. It has 89 rotor hours as of this morning. The last of the combines from Texas are currently being moved up to Kansas, so all 15 will be in the area. The past few days they have been running as a group of 7 machines. The combines that have flex headers and pickup reels have been cutting ground that was hit by hail since most of it has to be cut at ground level. It was 10:30 this morning when I spoke with him - they were waiting a bit to cut a sample of wheat. He expected it to be another very long day again today.
Some of the ground was yielding 60-65 bu/ac and there were a few fields that were up around 90 bu/ac. Oddly enough, that ground was non-irrigated on sandy soil. The ground they are onto now is doing 25-35 bu/ac, but it is hard to tell how much of an impact the hail damage has on that number.
2005-6-16
Last night they ended up with another 3 inches of rain. There is about 8000 acres of wheat to cut here.
2005-6-15
Update from Terri Ryan:
Grandpa Brack rode with Alex this afternoon while Grandma took the pictures. Here they are cutting at Great Bend by the airport with "NO WIND" and rust in the wheat. This is what they all fought last night after dark. No wonder they couldn't see each other, let alone their headers....
They are getting a lot of the worst storm around as of this typing. It's really too bad, because Alex said the wheat was making 60+ bushels to the acre.
They will probably be in Great Bend approximately 2-3 weeks. One of the crews in Texas still has about 2 weeks worth of cutting left to do, and they are still battling the rain!
Lance here - Just looking at those pictures, wow! Alex mentioned last night that they have to keep a close eye on the coolant gauges. With that much crap in the air, filters and screens can get plugged up pretty quickly. It looks like they now have a 2 or 3 MPH wind, which is just enough to keep the cloud of dust around the combine.
2005-6-14
Lance here - I spoke with Alex tonight again. They are finally back to cutting wheat. He spent the last three nights at home since the wheat was wet. There aren't many combines in this area yet, they might be a little ahead of the rush. I think there are still a lot of harvesters stuck in TX and OK due to the rain that just keeps coming.
Currently they are cutting in a quarter section west of Great Bend, right next to the airport. Earlier in the day they tried some fields east of town, but the wheat there was at 18% moisture. Once they sampled here, they found the moisture was at only 10.5% and so they got rolling around 2:30. It has been yielding around 45-50 bu/ac. Everything in this area is Snell's own wheat and most of it gets hauled to on farm storage, instead of the grain elevator.
Alex said that there is absolutely no wind tonight and it is real dusty. All of the dust that comes out the back of the combines is still there when they get back around the field. It looks almost foggy from the dust. Visibity is also pretty low, he was having a hard time seeing the ends of the header to know where the standing wheat stops. As I was talking with him, two more combines were just arriving at the field. They hoped to get this field done yet tonight and maybe move to another.
2005-6-12
2005-6-10
Update from Terri Ryan:
Alex and his crew are en-route to Ellinwood Kansas as of this morning. They are roading the combines....should be a fun 6 hour drive. Should have good traveling weather until Pratt. From Pratt to Ellinwood they will be driving in rain! Hopefully he can come home for the weekend, and take a breather! We are supposed to have rain all weekend. Started raining about 8 this morning here in Russell and is still raining off and on. The coop here took their first 2 loads of wheat here yesterday afternoon.