August heat jump starts the 2009 harvest
August heat jump starts the 2009 harvest
By MARVIN BAKER
EDITOR
Conditions were perfect for harvest Tuesday so the combines were rolling across Mountrail County picking up winter wheat and peas .
Humidity was low, wind speed was light and the temperature was pushing triple digits by late afternoon in Parshall which is ideal for combining, according to Jeff Ball, a truck driver with JD Harvesting in Alva, Okla.
Ball, along with two of his peers from JD, were harvesting peas on Irvin Andes’ property a mile northeast of Parshall Tuesday while Andes himself, was southwest of town working the winter wheat.
“This is comfortable,” Ball said of the 97-degree temperature. “I’ll take this any day rather than 105 and the humidity we get in Oklahoma.”
But as Ball waited for his next trip to the Andes farm to bin the peas, the two combiners were gobbling up the dried legumes as quickly as photographs could be taken of them passing the truck.
In this particular field, which had several small hills and knolls, the Case IH and John Deere combines actually adjusted speed as the growth became quite thick in lower levels where snow most likely built up through the winter months.
