Hello Atlas, We only take two cuttings off the alfalfa since it gets pretty late to dry out a third on the irrigated stuff. On the dryland we might get a decent second cutting and that's good news for this area. I just checked Craigslist and see local alfalfa currently listed from $100-130/ton, none sounding to be of dairy quality but more like horse and feeder hay. When I moved here from the midwest 37 years ago I noticed growers cutting it down in full bloom (???) Looks more like used baling wire than quality stuff, but have learned as long as it's green and weed free horse people don't seem to care about anything else. We got the alfalfa moved inside and I've been baling bluegrass straw at night for the past week. Have had some cool evenings and good dew for a change which makes for nice, heavy bales, plus it's been a full moon and lots of wildlife to see. The grass straw will probably sell for $45/50 per 750 lb. bale this winter. All of the large farms bale mid/large size rectangles in the grass straw which has been running around 7% protein which makes for a good blend with alfalfa to winter cows. Used to ship all of it to a large ranch near Polson, MT before fuel went up. This is the first year we have dealt with a small number of 65 lb. bales but luckily are handling them with automation--got enough of that as a kid...

Hi Bleedinred. You mention Bluegrass hay ,is it grazed with livestock as well as baled the same season. or do you just cut and bale once a season. excuse my ignorance for asking these questions. In the UK we take one cut only for hay and pray it does not rain in the process and get ruined which is quite common in our unreliable climate? cheers Atlas

It's Kentucky bluegrass raised for lawn seed. We used to burn the stubble and straw off in the fall which helped shock the plants into producing well the next year. Around 8-10 years ago burning was banned and many growers quit raising it. We saw yields fall to half of what we got before the burn ban. Now we bale the straw and shred the fields late in the fall as low as we can, so yes, it's a one bale deal after the combining. A few operations run cattle on the stubble, letting them eat it down to the crown and it looks like that helps yield. Nothing like the old days, but it works in the rotation and is better than smoking up Spokane and Coeur d' Alene in the heat of the summer. They still burn in NIF's neighborhood over in Idaho.

Atlas- everybody around here takes one cutting of hay, maybe two sometimes on alfalfa. A few guys try to cut early in June to get higher quality but often get rained on. By early July it is usually pretty dry so thats when most of the hay starts being cut. As bleedinred mentioned bluegrass stubble is burned after harvest but some guys are baling the straw up after the combine now.

Finished plowing the CRP yesterday after getting the plow back together from breaking the land wheels off. That plow has always been a problem to keep running.

Moved back home to change a couple shears to get ready to plow wheat stubble this fall.





More disking



Had some thunderstorms yesterday that hit the camas prairie south of here and then got one here after dark that gave us some rain which will only make our crops dry out slower.



Taken today showing spring lentils....all the white blooms are dogfennel weeds, nasty plants that will wrap around various parts of the combine when still green.

Hi NIF,

Noticed the picture of the back of your D6C, and the hydraulic valve arrangement you have. Is that something you put together yourself? Doesnt look like a Cat setup. Some more shots of that would be nice, currious to how you have that setup on the tractor?
Some more great pictures, thanks!
How far away from Harvest are you?
Woody

I'm kind of curious about the rear hydraulics too...once in a while it would be handy to have rear hyd to pull an implement (scraper, disc, etc)...not that I'm going to start farming with my D6c like you do.

Would be interested if it could be done for reasonable price. The local track shop builds & sells a rear hyd unit that's pto powered, but it's about $10k...way beyond what I can afford.

Hi NIF You mentioned you have bought extra acreage. Have you had to purchase extra or larger machinery to cope with the extra work, or are you managing to spread your existing costs over a larger acreage. cheers Atlas

NIF, 98J, have you guys started harvest yet??? Should be getting close shouldn't it? What do yields look like? I've really enjoyed this post and would like to see it through this harvest. I haven't been on a combine since I was on my brother's 95H in 2003. I don't miss the itch but do miss the sights sounds and smells.

Casey.

Well I finally got off my backside to cut the Beardless Barley.
Check out the videos also. Tad

Woody- we are the third owners of the D6C and the first owners did the hydraulics. It is actually not that different of a setup from the other cats just with 3 sets instead of two and the extra set of valves plumbed in outside. I can grab some more pics sometime but the tractor is sitting over at another place right now.

D6C10K- yes it could be done for much less than that, lots of guys had ag cats with rear hydraulics and dozer blades, I think I know of a place that may have something that would work for you. I will let you know.

Atlas- no different equipment so far. Plan to build a new bigger harrow cart this winter. Our two 6622 combines are more than capable of handling our current acreage, we currently cut more grain than our trucks can haul away so with bigger acreage we may get some tandem axle diesel powered trucks.- old logging trucks are often converted to grain trucks around here. We also would like a bigger drill eventually but want to figure out whether we can move into spring no-till and min till or stay with conventional. We may get an air drill with hoe openers if we could count on it paying off but otherwise we will upgrade to a 35' set of 455 JD fold-up drills which is the most common seed drill around here these days. We will probably have more acreage fertilized and sprayed by custom than before.

Casey- we cut our lower elevation spring wheat (march planted) this past week and it did 55bu/a which isnt bad since it had rust so bad. No winter wheat harvested around these parts yet but we have the combines moved to the driest field and have been cutting moisture samples and hope to start Tuesday the 17th. The rest of our wheat will hopefully go in a week or so except the upper elevation spring wheat which is a couple weeks away. The eastern part of the palouse was going full swing with winter wheat harvest when I was up through there a couple days ago. I have not gotten any harvest pictures yet but hope to get some good one over the next couple weeks.

Tad- thanks for posting- I like the one where you can touch the unloading auger and the one with the valley in the background- what crop is irrigated down there on that flat?