FINALLY!! We finally had a more general rain across all our land. There was a series of thunderstorms that went through last week each evening for 4 days in a row. The rainfall amounts varied significantly – verified on our weather stations over that 4 day period we had 32mm in the south; 44mm in the central area and between 10mm and 21mm up north. Each storm system that came through was a severe thunderstorm with strong wind and hail. We had hail touch approximately 30% of our land with low to moderate levels of damage. The worst damage was in our cereals, and canola had more surface damage that we won’t know the full extent of until the crop begins to dry down. The damage to the canola was more of a “sandblasting” effect – damaged the outside of the pod but didn’t knock too many pods off. When the plant matures and starts to dry down we will be able to see if it was just the seed that was damaged behind the point of contact where the hailstone hit, or if it was the integrity of the pod – where we touch it with the header at harvest and it shatters before we can get it into the header. Overall, the rain was welcome and will provide more benefit than the hail did damage. You don’t have to travel far to see much more severe damage – only a half mile from some of our land there was a strip of hail that caused 100% damage!
This past week our dealership also had training for our farm at the dealership – there are quite a few differences on our X9’s compared to the previous 700 series machines. It will take a few days for us to be able to find the “sweet spot” for operating – speed, combine settings, and header settings. There will also be a new strategy for logistics that we will have to figure out.
We will begin harvest this week – we have a half section of early maturing barley that we had planted on the first day of planting – in an area that has been dry all season – that close to ready to harvest. This next week the forecast looks like more rain is on the way as well, so we will do our best to get this done before the next weather system moves in.
Everyone is excited to finally begin harvest!
