Thursday, May 6, 2021

Spring Wheat (and Clover) is In the Ground

I'm happy with how it went, aside from getting stuck twice. I have a few bags of wheat seeds left over, probably 5% of the total - getting the seed drill to meter properly is a challenge. I need to bring the truck as well as the tractor and seed tender home as they are still in the field about 12 miles south of here.

With a bit of luck I'll have some food grade organic wheat to harvest in August. The clover will really take off once the wheat is gone. It will be my nitrogen fixing, soil building cover crop - one that winter kills - ahead of 2022's organic soybean planting.



I still need to finalize where I'm selling the wheat. I hope to have a signed production contract in the next week. 

UPDATED 5/13/21: Ardent Mills will buy the wheat for $13/bushel. I'll harvest the wheat in August, put it in a grain bin and run air over it for a week or so and then send them a sample. If I meet their specs, one of which is a protein level of 13%, I'll have the roughly 3,600 bushels (or 210,000 lbs) of organic food grade wheat trucked to their mill in Mankato, MN.

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