Grain Cart Ballet
Love Songs from the Loading Zone
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The Tractor Goofies
Those of us who spend our days in tractors know that the days can get long. Even with mobile phones, iPads, and Peaky Blinders on Netflix, those long days can be dull, even for those with the wackiest imaginations.
Combating this boredom sometimes requires a bit of old-fashioned silliness. This silliness makes some parents shout at their children and even consider donating them to a science museum in Topeka. For the rest of us, it’s a necessity—a prescription.
As someone who’s spent a lot of days grinding the time listening to nineties country music, I can tell you the only way to keep your sanity is by losing it occasionally.
Fly The Freak Flag
The tractor goofies are easy and can be done by anybody, even the most negative of Nancies.
All it takes is a willingness to let go and a dash of hope that nobody drives by and sees you in the cab bopping along to a Mariah Carey jam.
These days, you’ve also got to worry about someone catching super-sneaky drone footage while you’re air-drumming to the worst album of all time, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours.
(Don’t cancel me, people. It’s a scientific fact; Rumours should never have been allowed to exit the recording studio.)
Who Are You When Nobody’s Looking?
I like to think we all have a little of the tractor goofies in us.
Okay, maybe not everybody. I have difficulty seeing some farmers pull out their air jazz flute when a Jethro Tull song cracks through the music box.
But then again, there are always some folks who just don’t get it.
For the rest of us, the working stiffs, we’re out stomping a jig and screaming about vans down by the river while we do the old forth and back in a four-wheel drive.
Tractor time can be a slow time. It’s an excellent opportunity to get in touch with oneself and discover what you’re made of.
I can’t think of a better way to do that than belting out the Saved By the Bell theme song while you’re churning dirt.
Go ahead. Get your tractor goofies on today, and thank me tomorrow.
The Art of The Grain Cart
Do you know what cracks my corn?
In this year of our Lord, 2023, how is there not yet a national grading system for grain cart drivers?
We just learned we could grow 110-bushel wheat on less than ten inches of moisture, but we don’t have a national database to separate the premier cartists from the mediocre - the wheat from the chaff.
Such a travesty.
Maybe the boomers are right when they say this country is falling apart.
The Path to Grain Cart Artistry
The grain cart operator is a crucial cog to an efficient harvest.
Without somebody competent at the helm, the whole show will likely fall apart faster than the Minnesota Wild in the first round of the NHL Playoffs.
It’s been nearly a quarter of a century since I learned to chase grain — two score and four years ago, as some old presidents would say.
In that time, I’ve learned the ins and outs of the grain shuttle.
If there was a national database, you can bet your humble writer of this weekly pamphlet would be peering down from the top of the list.
Not only do I enjoy chasing grain, but I also like to train fresh operators—the new meat.
I have a reputation for turning grain-spilling greenhorns into grain cart Mozarts. As a result, I have been invited to speak at numerous grain cart seminars across the world. Manufacturers such as J&M, Unverferth, and Kinze are likely considering hiring me as their spokesperson or ambassador.
Believe it or not, it hasn’t always been this way.
There was a time when I struggled to get the wheat from the cart to the truck without blowing it over the sidewalls. Many combine operators had to do the unthinkable and stop while I tootled over.
Simple, But Not Easy
Depending on the number of combines involved, it can be an intricate game more complicated than a made-up hybrid mess of chess, craps, and Parcheesi.
The stakes are high. I don’t know if you’ve ever been around a combine operator who has to stop his machine with a full hopper and his auger hanging out in the breeze, but they can be meaner than Macho Man Randy Savage chewing on shards of glass.
It can take years to pick up on the pattern and get to the point when you know when to dump the cart or hang around and get another splash.
The Times, They Are A-Changin’
When I started in the late 90s, it was a different world. Nobody was worried about soil compaction or overweight tickets back then. We just cuffed and stuffed the trucks and went on with our day.
Today, everything has changed. Some cart operators hardly need to do anything besides get the tractor in the general vicinity of the combine. From there, the combine operator controls the tractor and cart remotely.
Pretty soon, we won’t even need a person to man the tractor.
A world devoid of grain cart operators is a world I want no part of.
It's important to appreciate and thank grain cart operators for their value.
Without them, you’d have to stop to dump.
Gross.
A Hundred-Bushel Foot in My Mouth
With a few days of harvest under our belts, I want to remind everybody of the giant foot I so willingly wedged in my mouth.
My long-term readers may remember me pissing and moaning about the heat and lack of rainfall earlier in the growing season. They may also remember me saying something about the expected lack of wheat yields.
Well, here I am, with over half the crop in the bins, to proclaim precisely how wrong I was. But first, a bit of backstory.
Overdosed On the Kool-Aid
As many of you know, your weekly writer of this here weekly farm pamphlet likes to geek out on all things farming. That means I attend a lot of meetings in the off-season.
From the Prairie Grains Conference in December to the International Sugar Beet Institute in March, I chase the ag meetings like an out-of-work groupie. I would join the fan club of North Dakota State University agriculture professor Tom Peters if there were one.
I love to farm and learn, so the stuff that puts some farmers to sleep gets my motor running.
Of all the high-octane things I learned through the 2023 winter meeting season, a relatively unknown wheat variety released by the University of Minnesota stole the thunder.
At the small grains update meeting in January, U of M wheat breeder Jim Anderson told the group about Rothsay. He promised wheat variety that doesn’t tip over, has good protein and test weight, and produces exceptional yields.
It sounded like the perfect wheat variety, perhaps too good. I felt I should be skeptical. But there was something about Anderson’s confidence that piqued my interest and sent me digging through data.
After sifting through the numbers, I had a dream - a vision akin to what Wayne saw in the cult classic Wayne’s World 2, where a spirit guide advises Wayne to book the bands. In my dream, the guide told me if we planted it, they would come.
I woke up and headed straight for the Kool-Aid stand, where the creators of Rothsay hoisted me up for a Kool-Aid kegstand.
I have noticed that my dreams are becoming increasingly strange. Having them checked out by a professional might be a good idea.
Have You Completely Lost Your Mind?
When I recommended he go heavy on the Rothsay this spring, my business partner John looked at me like I’d just walked into the room wearing ketchup popsicle earrings and a purple tutu.
“I don’t know, man. Those U of M dudes are pretty high on the stuff, and I got a gut feeling about it.”
“A gut feeling? You want me to risk half of my wheat crop on one of your ‘gut feelings?”
“Yeah that’s right,” I responded in my best Seinfeld character, David Putty impersonation.
“Last time I trusted you, we ended up on the side of the road in Montana with your pickup impounded,” John whimpered as he let out a bellowing sigh.
“Relax. If this doesn’t work out, I will eat ketchup. That’s how confident I am.”
With one more exaggerated sigh, John almost coughed back to me, “Okay, fine. Rothsay it is.”
There’s a New Sheriff in Town
I’ve been doing farming in many wheat fields for a long time. I’ve seen a lot of field averages in the 80s and a few in the 90s, but I've never been a part of harvesting a triple-digit average on a wheat field.
Yesterday we changed all that. We blew past the hundred mark and went straight to 110 bushels per acre. It’s worth mentioning the sixty-plus pound test weight and protein near fourteen.
Rothsay is the real deal.
I had never seen anything like it, except for when I was nine and my truck-drivin’ pappy and I stopped to watch a man combine a field of hundred-plus bushel wheat in Southern Arizona or New Mexico. I can’t remember exactly where, but I can guarantee Dad does. The guy has a memory sticker than Gorilla Glue.
Speaking of glue, Rothsay is going to stick around for quite some time. The wheat breeders at the University of Minnesota have put together the perfect wheat.
Keep your Buns in the oven. I can’t see any reason to plant any other wheat variety in 2024. The only problem you’ll have is finding a place to store it all.
Who would’ve thought a foot could taste so good?