Back in December two of my good friends and fellow farmers, Macey Wessels and Shelly Boshart Davis and I were given the opportunity to join Damian Mason on his podcast; The Business of Agriculture.
We covered a multitude of topics including Oregon agriculture in general, what it’s like to farm in a heavy regulated state, being a woman in ag, grass seed, filberts (or hazelnuts), trucking and straw. So if you’re interested in a glimpse into what it’s like to be a farmer in Oregon, I take a listen and let me know what you think!
You can find us where you regularly listen in to podcasts, look under “The Business of Agriculture; Episode 222 entitled Grass Seed, Hazelnuts, Trucking & More”. Or you can also follow this YouTube link to listen.
This is one of my most favorite photos that I took this summer. Harvest was tough on us this year. The weather, while hot, was consistent and good for seed harvesting conditions. But mentally it was very draining and long. Every field was a different challenge, a different scenario, sort of like choose your own disaster (instead of adventure) for how you wanted to handle what was happening. Some of that had to do with pests like voles, other things were more challenging like seed shatter due to the high heat wave we had during cutting, add that to an overall dry spring, topped off with the usual equipment breakdowns and harvest juggling.
But this photo, and the ones below, show my favorite part; sharing harvest with our kids. They love being out in the field with us during harvest. Either playing in the dirt, riding on the combine or helping Matt take a truck in to the cleaner to dump seed. Their love for the field is something that will never get old for me as a farm mom and hopefully never get old for them either!
We have been getting some above normal temperatures here in the Pacific Northwest. Last week we saw some record breaking temperatures go up into the 110-115 range (even higher in some areas), which made air conditioning feel incredible and the stress of what was happening to our crops not so amazing.
It’s hard to say how it affected our crops. When I walk around assessing what might be damaged it all seems very inconsistent. Some crops seem unaffected, while others have shown that it was clearly too hot for them.
We have green beans that were trying their best to bloom during this time. We poured the water on and I think escaped with not too much damage to the blooms, but the plant themselves have seemed to have stalled somewhat. Sort of like saying “What on earth was that??!!”
This is in an area that got consistent water through the hottest days. These beans plants were on the edge of the field and only got about half as much water as the rest.
Our hazelnuts in some areas look like you took a blow torch to them; and in other areas they look just fine.
We had about half of our grass seed cut for harvest, and I’m sure knocked a fair amount of seed onto the ground while cutting in less than ideal conditions.
So when asked “How did the crops do in the heat?” I honestly have nothing more to say beyond “We will know more after harvest.” Because until our crops get trucked across scales it’s always a tough call on what the effects actually were. Until then we will keep taking care of our crops the best we know how, keep trying to protect them from the things that we can control, and pray Mother Nature is done with the “extremes” this year.
NuttyGrass 