We are happy to post a short report about the wheat harvest at Luisenhof:
During the wheat harvest, our friend Markus supported us with his small 14HP Bautz tractor and a binder of the manufacturer Fahr. In the absence of our own horse-drawn binder, this is one of the rare moments when a tractor can be found in our fields. The binder has a cutting width of about 180cm and was built in the early 50s.
At the time of harvest our wheat was a good 130cm high, which was no problem for the binder. Due to the drought and the high temperatures of the past months, the grain was ready for harvest a good 3 weeks earlier than usual.
The grain could be bindered at an optimal time. Overall, the ears were already ripe but the grains were still well held in the ears. The stalks were not yet completely dry in the lower area. Grain loss due to the mowing process was thus almost completely prevented
The bundles were then set up for post-ripening and drying. Here, different techniques and variants for setting up the so-called "Hoppen" were tried out. Not every technique was convincing and successful. The stability of the "Hoppen" was not really good in most variants. To some extent the variant of the tunnel-shaped A proofed to be valuable. Here, 2 rows of bundles were set up with the ears leaning against each other.
After the bundles had stood for almost 2 weeks, they were then loaded onto the trailer and stored for later threshing. Traditionally, the so-called ladder wagon ("Leiterwagen" is lined with cloth for the transport of the bundles, so that no grains are lost during loading and transport.
Despite the long and extreme drought, we had the impression that the wheat developed quite well and are already eagerly awaiting the threshing in the coming weeks.
