At the Farm...Harvesting

<Zeke>
Everyone on the farm helps to do the farm work, like harvesting, after school and on the weekends. 


How do you grow the grains?

• plough the soil and fertilize with nitrogen
• plant the seeds in rows in a trench
• the seeder machine covers the seeds with soil
• wait for rain
• the little shoots germinate and sense gravity to make them grow up
• after it has grown a bit, spray the weeds
• after it has grown it is harvested using the header (takes about 6 months to grow)

How much sorghum do you get per year?
1100 tonne or about 40 big truck loads


We helped with harvesting of sorghum.

This is the header cutting the heads off the sorghum.  It then bashes the seed bits off and spits the stem bits out the back.  We all had a ride in this.

The grain is then loaded into the chaser bin.  It was driven by Greenie's dad or by Sam, Jack or Tom.


The bin is called a chaser bin because it chases the header down the paddock  and gets filled on the run.  Even Sam can drive the chaser bin while it is being filled from the header.


Some of the sorghum was loaded into a truck and unloaded into the silos at home.  It will be used for cow feed.

 

 

The rest of the sorghum was loaded into silos to be sold.

This is 7 year old Tom driving the tractor and chaser bin the help with harvest.


Sam then reversed the tractor and bin up beside the silo


And Tom gave directions from the top of the silo


The grain is unloaded.  Tom and his cousin Tom are watching to check when the silo is full.

We did the next load from the other side of the silo.  I was on top of the silo with Tom.

 

 

It was getting dark.  Sometimes harvesting goes all through the night because the grain needs to be harvested when it's ready and needs to be finished before it rains.

The Greens also had crops of mungbeans.  They were getting harvested at the same time as the sorghum.