Daytime Harvest has started!

We started harvest for 2024 about 17 days ago. But most of that work has been happening in the middle of the night and early morning hours. Today however marks the first harvest day in the daytime!

Swathing or cutting the crop into rows for combining is usually done at night when the air is cooler and the dew can help keep seeds on the stem.

I’m excited to get started and get this show on the road! First on the list is crimson clover. This crop looked pretty good but a late surge of disease has me questioning what it will end up like after we get the final yield numbers.

This crop in the past has been really good and it’s also been pretty awful. It’s a great rotation for us, fits in well with our dryland ground especially. But the price can fluctuate greatly as can when it gets sold and shipped (aka when we get paid for it). Some years we get a nice fall check after good movement and other years (this past 2023 crop for example) we are lucky to have a check to take in before we are harvesting another.

In a county that boasts growing over 280 or so crops it always amazes me how few options we really have and what a struggle it can be to find something that’s consistent, not super risky, low labor and can be grown with the crops and infrastructure that we have already.

So while today marks the start of our daytime harvest here in Oregon, the real story of how this year will end up for our farm; when bills are paid and checks are cashed, is many months away.

Next in our 2024 harvest line up we have grass seed (both tall fescue and perennial), green beans, radish, wheat and finally we will wrap up the year with filberts.

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Author: Nuttygrass

I'm a nut and grass farmer, EMT, Firefighter, and world traveler. I love a good laugh and a great adventure!

2 thoughts on “Daytime Harvest has started!”

  1. Is Wilco selling or closing their Filbert plant in Aurora going to have an impact on you Brenda? I’m a bit worried about our filbert situation with prices down, inputs up and now this.

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    1. Hey Rob, I probably should write a whole blog on this situation but the short answer is yes it does impact us. However I feel like we did all that we could have done to prepare for it on our farm. Some things you just can’t control. I’m sad that HGO is no longer but I’m also glad they made that choice before the bleeding was so bad that the impacts would have been worse. We got paid for 2023 crop and we are able to move on with other processors because of the transparency that HGO provided early in the season. Had this decision came in mid September I would have had a very different opinion. I’m hopeful that prices will go up, they already did from a few years ago so I hope that’s a good continuing trend because we aren’t at break even yet in my opinion.

      To say I’m not concerned would be an understatement but I’m hopeful that other processors will use this an as opportunity to continue growing the hazelnut market. A middle man closing their doors isn’t as concerning as if markets started disappearing. Ironically enough markets getting stronger and HGO having sold too early and not being able to capitalize on that was one of the nails in their coffin.

      Maybe it’s the optimistic farmer in me but I am hopeful.

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