2008-8-27
A farmer who does some custom field work helped chisel the acres that are planned for sugar-beets next year. The depth is about 12 inches, the implement about 24 ft wide, he runs the Deere at 7.5 mph in very hard soil. The 9630 is turned up to 660 HP, has water in the tires and is about 32 metric tons. The reason why he is running 800 metric tires is that government does not allow machines to be more than 3 m (9 ft) wide on public roads.
2008-8-25
We started seeding canola today. There is still a lot of moisture in the ground, so we think that it will be up soon. Temps are around 80 at the moment, and there is still a lot of wind that dries the ground immediately. Sunflowers are getting ready, we hope to start in between the next two weeks. They are looking very good!
2008-8-19
9010 is still doing milo, we are nearly finished and at the moment NE of Vienna. Weather is good, but the strong wind hurts sometimes by shelling out the milo.
2008-8-13 - The challenge, the combine, and the struggle.
A challenge for the 2366 (aka "Pinocchio". Threshing grass, 6ft tall and completely green on the Excperimental farm of Agriculture in Gross Enzersdorf, East of Vienna! The grass belongs to the Agropyron varieties, called "Scharvasi", whose origin is somewhere in the Middle East. Believe me, it was a challenge, glad there were only a few square meters!!!!
2008-8-12
Milo is dry enough on some spots so we started today to harvest this crop. Yields are good, but everyone is afraid that it shells out in the next thunderstorm. Combine is still doing a perfect job and we are very satisfied with "her".
2008-8-4
Everything we have is on the fields at the moment, though weather is good and the ground is dry. We do some chiseling, disking and a little bit of mature spreading. Bad weather is in the forecast, so hours are getting longer and longer, there is no leisure time in sight.
2008-7-30
Finished harvest on the farm today. These pictures show the last impressions of the 2008 small grain harvest on the home farm. Yields are good, even though we didn't have great weather this year. Quality is gone with the last few acres, one picture shows you why! Roading is always a dangerous thing over here, especially with three combines.
Luckily we could finish everything for this year. Rain is again in the forecast and we are afraid of sunflower diseases at the moment. Sugar beets are looking bountiful and we are expecting perfect sugar quality too, when we can get them out of the fields.
2008-7-25
Received unbelievable rain the last 4 days. Qualities in wheat and durum are gone, we are waiting for dry weather now to get the crops in. Corn and sunflowers are looking tremendous, we hope to get a sunny fall to get them in without problems.
2008-7-17
Bountiful yields of malting barley in the North of Vienna on our way to the Czech border. After 5 days we're rained out. Our average acres per hour is around 14.4 and still climbing. We can say that the 9010 has about 15% more capacity than the 8010 we owned before.
2008-7-9
Rain, rain and rain again. We're rained out for several days now, not a lot of inches but enough to stop harvest progress. There is a little maintenance, but days often end in the afternoon in front of the TV. We are afraid that wheat quality is getting bad now! Forecast is again rain till Monday next week, then there is a chance that summer will come back again!
2008-7-4
Canola is next on our list to harvest. We started two days ago doing excellent yielding canola (AKA: oil seed rape) in the area NE of Vienna. There will be two more days till we switch into our first wheat on bad, stony ground. We do our canola in straight cut, to attach the head we only have to lift the two side knives and move forward the cutting bar.
2008-7-1
Though we have got a lot more horses this year we decided to start baling a little bit earlier this season. We do need all in all 1200 bales this year, and we are afraid that weather isn't good during wheat harvest, when we normally do this job.
2008-6-29
Started on winter barley last week with our new 9010. After a few little problems in the beginning this machine worked to our satisfaction. We operate her with a 30' Biso Crop Ranger head. Capacity is about 15% more than the "old" 8010 we traded for. New features are the chopper, the power (530hp peak) and a few new things concerning the fan, cleaning system and the unloading auger. Due to the bad weather (we were rained out 2 times by thunderstorms) we put 2 additional New Holland combines to work with 25' headers. So we could luckily finish the barley right before the next rain shower came in. Average yields are very good, but there are tremendous differences between the three different varieties.
