Like a game day, you don’t just step onto the field and go. You prepare all season long, with hours of work and planning invested. Harvest is the game day for farmers, and your livelihoods depend on the outcome. Here are some things to know before you lace up your game day boots and hit the fields.
Technology is a great thing, but adequate preparation must go in to ensure things run smoothly while in the field. Timeouts during harvest are not ideal.
Jason Kieser, a soybean farmer from Bloomington, Illinois, says being proactive is key when it comes to preparing for harvest.
“We usually start planning around the beginning of August, about four weeks before harvest,” he says.
- Check equipment, create a harvest schedule and cross off to-dos around the farm so your focus can be on a safe and successful harvest.
Having things in order before the frenzy of harvest reduces stress and ensures the focus is getting the crop out. A few weeks before harvest, make a list of items that need attention and conquer the tasks as best you can.
- Pull equipment out of the shed for inspection, repairs and cleaning.
Just as one musty uniform can smell up an entire locker room, just a few weed seeds can take over an entire field. Prevent this by cleaning your equipment and making sure weed seeds don’t win.
“We’ve gotten into the habit of [cleaning our equipment up] right after harvest,” says Keiser. “So it’s ready to go for next year.”
Also, if a combine has been sitting in the shed for a year it’s likely that something will need to be repaired or greased. Comb over the machine and give it some TLC, maybe even a pep talk, so it’s ready to go.
- Order parts that may be needed during harvest. Those parts could be in high demand and low supply when you need them most and may lead to even more downtime.
Although you may have checked your equipment over, there may be that one part that is prone to breaking at the most inconvenient time. Be proactive and order parts early, so that a quick timeout is all that is needed for repairs, and you’re back in the field in no time.
- Update your tech and be sure to have a plan to back up the data you gather during harvest.
Andy and LaVell Winsor, soybean farmers near Grantville, Kansas, note how important it is to take time to calibrate yield monitors correctly before beginning harvest.
“[Yield monitors] are computers, and so the software in them needs to be updated, just like any other software.”
It’s also important to save data often.
“The biggest challenge with software is, like any technology, some days it will work and some days it won’t,” says Greg McGlinch, farmer in Darke County, Ohio. “It’s good to have a backup.”
Soybean farmers LaVell and Andy Winsor and their family.
When the star player gets a sprain, a backup is there to finish the game. Have your data backup plan in place by making sure all hardware is operational and software programs are running on the latest updates. If your tech doesn’t do it automatically, remember to back up data at least once per day.
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