Wednesday evening, July 1, 2026
PTL! The wheat crop is all done. We had not touched the combines since last Thursday night. It was great to get going again. Big rains kept us out of the fields.
Yes, there are still many loads to deliver on summer contracts, but the extended wheat harvest is finally behind us. We are grateful for this crop, even if it was a bit smaller than we had hoped. We still had some (at least I think so) really good yielding wheat for our yield contest entries (139.6 bpa). The extreme wet weather held back any field that had a flat area, or even the bottoms of WASCoBs. Still, the average for the crop came out at 106, which was not too bad for 2026 and its wet, wet weather. That was less than we thought it might be during the winter, but spring weather was not kind to this crop.
Now, comes the planting of double-crop soybeans (DCB). The soil is too wet today to plant any DCB in any wheat field, but I’m hoping this hot weather will dry it enough for me to get started on that by Friday or Saturday.
It was a good day’s running today. The older S780 had to have its batteries replaced today, just to get started. But the day’s work went pretty well, and it was fun to see the crop roll into the header. Even though this wheat crop took much longer to bring in, I’ll still miss it for a few days… I really enjoy cutting wheat, especially nowadays when we can get 100+ yields.
Getting started late this morning.
Midday
Unloading on this hilly field
Starting around the next-to-last field…
Nutrien will be closed on Friday and Saturday, so I’ll send the Volvo tomorrow to get a load of seed in the hopper trailer. That way, if by some wonderful chance I can plant on Friday and/or Saturday, I won’t run out of seed, and be intruding on Greg’s holiday just to get more seed.
I hope that I’ll be able to plant DCB Friday and Saturday. We will see. The soil surface needs to be dry, and it’s not close to that yet.
Have a wonderful 4th holiday. It has been a blessing to see the European visitors who are here for the World Cup soccer tournament. It is a vivid reminder that the good ol’ USA has a lot of good things going for it. And I especially appreciate the comments that Americans are friendly and helpful. These images and videos provide a special boost during the 250th Anniversary celebration.
