2024, Business, Farming Update, Uncategorized, work

Part 2: Oats Continued

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Today’s Farming Update comes from Ben.

Last week I talked about getting the oats out.

This week we get to combining, or harvesting the oats. This hot humid weather did not aid drying the oat stems or mixed in grass. Other guys were saying the moisture was high on their oats, but usually they’re cutting it while it’s standing. That only works if you don’t have too much grass standing with the oats. . Swathing it allows the stems to dry out and then combine better.

Parm stated to combine on Wednesday afternoon. I ran a sample up to Elgin to have it tested for moisture and test weight. Moisture was 10.8%, almost too low, and TW was 30. For food grade, they want it 36-40 pounds. And the local elevators won’t even take it if it’s not at at least 34. Remember the test weight is what a standard bushel of a particular crop should weigh. So a bushel of oats should weigh 32 pounds and lighter than tat you get docked on the price.

Other years I’ve not had a problem with test weight. Inside the combine harvester, there are fans to blow out the chaff, bits of cob, or lighter crop material. Typically, buy turning the fan up, it allows you to blow out the lighter oats and keep the heavier stuff. Course, if it’s all light, lie it seems to be this year, either it blows all the crop out, or the test weight is light. For whatever reason, the experts say that letting it sit for a day will increase the test weight. And moving the oats through a grain cart and into the semi will gain a point. But I am not sure I can gain 5 points.

Yield wasn’t too great either, For all the grain that looked like was in the field, well, I mean that the deer didn’t eat and what hadn’t broken off, I’ve only got 25 bushels /acre. this year was too wet, I guess, and the rusts fungus must have been more of a problems than I expected. An d last year I complained it was too dry. I am never happy.

And then we got 2 inches of rain Wednesday night. Surprisingly, Parm was able to come out Saturday and get the rest combined. I took a sample out the the grain cart up to my local Seed dealer because I knew I could get the grain gossip from him. this time my test was only 27 pounds but the moisture was up. He said everybody was struggling to make the test weight and even our local oat champion, who is the one pushing the food grade stuff, said he was struggling to get the 34 test weight.

By the time Parm finished combining, all 25 acres I had was less then a semi load. Thankfully, I have this one neighbor that always buys some oats to mix with his calf feed and was willing to take the whole thing. I called the co-op to ask how much dockage would be on this low test weight. With a base price of $3.05 per bushel, their chart only goes down to 28 and it’s $.52 dockage at that point. 30 test weight would be $.32 dockage. Well fudge.

I like having Oats in the crop rotation, and honestly, I have made money on other years, so I remain optimistic. Maybe next hear will be better. I mean it pretty much has to be.

WHAT WAS YOUR WEIGHT IN HIGH SCHOOL? CAN YOU STILL FIT INTO YOUR UNIFORM / WEDDING DRESS / LETTER JACKET?

37 thoughts on “Part 2: Oats Continued”

  3. Your question makes me realize that I do weigh what I did my senior year in high school, but my pants would not fit. Inseam would be too short; waist would be too large.

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  4. so dockage is the deduction from the price? and you 25 bushels x25 actes is 625 x 250 after dockage youre at $1300 for 25 acres? after seed cost fertilizer cost swathing combining and trucking

    have tou looked at oat milk? or is that up to the guy who buys it to decide?

    sorry ben. hey do you eat oatmeal? i drink oat milk after daughter olivia worked at starbucks and declared quite emphatically that oat milk was the best. i like it and i never did like soy milk.
    are your beans likely to be dry too?

    i turned veggie in 10th grade and dropped from 160 to 135. today after breaking my leg i was down to 150 ish and i suspect with my new found ability to pack a delicious lunch for myself i am up to 160
    i like 150. it feels right if the tone is there

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  5. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    When I was 14 yo I grew 6 inches over a two year period, from 5’2″ to 5’8″. Later I put on another inch. By the time the growth spurt concluded I still weighed 110 pounds. I ate everything in sight. Because I did a lot of the family cooking, I cooked what I liked. By the time I graduated from High School I had somehow put on 11 pounds and my weight was up to 121. Very, Very Skinny! We walked everywhere and had a great deal of exercise

    When I got married 4 years later I probably weighed 130 lbs. I still have the wedding dress which I sewed myself. At this point in life the waist might fit one thigh.

    OT: I am seated in front of Lake Okoboji. Yesterday we visited the Gardiner Cabin, which was one of the sites of the Lakota Uprising that stretched over the years of 1850-1863 when the warriors were hung in Mankato. It was interesting to experience. We “girls”–now women–had a long discussion about these skewed events which were hidden, either by intent or omission, from our US History classes, one of which was taught by my own uncle.

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  6. I think I was around 120 when I graduated from high school, and I was about 5′ 5″. Gained some first year of college because of starchy dorm meals. got down to a reasonable weight again when I was on my own, but have yo-yo’d up and down for decades.

    Believe me, there is nothing from high school that I could now fit into unless it was my mittens.

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  7. I always see typo’s in the blog after it posts. I hate that. This one I wrote on my phone in the tractor cab, proofed it standing next to the car after filling a tire for a friend, and sent it from the field while baling straw. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

    I remember weighing 195 at some point, I think just after high school. Wore a 36″ waist. Been a long ways from that for a long time.

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  8. Most of the way through high school I was about a hundred pounds. That’a a bit underweight for my height. Right after I graduated, I put on about fifteen pounds. I had gotten a job at a KFC. We didn’t have to pay for any food we ate when we were on shift.

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  9. I was a skinny mini – barely 5’1″ and a scant 95 lbs. Mom thought I was too skinny and tried to stimulate my appetite by having me drink cranberry juice (have no idea where that came from). It didn’t work. Despite eating whatever I wanted (including a lot of bread/pastries/etc), I stayed under 100 lbs. until I reached my 40s – though I did sprout up to 5’2″. For the next 20 years I stayed right around 110. Now I have trended closer to 118, and shrunk back to 5′ 1.5″. The clothes I wore back in high school (size 2 petite or 5 junior) would not fit me now except maybe shoes. I wore size 4.5 women’s by HS graduation and now wear a 5 (because it is almost impossible to find a 4.5). I can also wear a youth size 3.5 for footwear such as winter boots or flip flops. Shoe shopping is not a fun activity as many stores/catalogs don’t even carry size 5.

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  10. I was skinny in high school. I didn’t start putting on weight until I was in my late 40s. I’m still 5’3”, but I only weighed 100 pounds or less in high school. The reality of my big, round, old body hit me yesterday when I took a yoga class. That class would have been too easy for me 10 years ago, but I could hardly get through it yesterday. My knees, right shoulder and lumbar spine all cried out for mercy.

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  11. I have never owned a uniform or a letter jacket or, for that matter, a wedding dress. I weigh more than I did in high school but, like then, I am the size of my clothes.

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  12. In high school I topped out at 176 cm and 58 kg. Like Jacque, I had a tremendous growth spurt, though mine lasted only one year. I would not be able to squeeze into any of my clothes from that time, for which I’m grateful. I never had a letter jacket but did have a girl scout uniform, it would be far too small now. Neither of my two “wedding” dresses would fit me now. It’s not just a matter of height and weight, I find that I’m shapeshifting.

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      1. I don’t have any from H.S. None in jacket or at graduation. I had to be to work at 6 the next morning and my mother did not take pictures of such things. Wonder who I walked with. Hmmmm? Do have couple from college graduation in front of Northrop.
        I have not looked at my yearbook in 20 years or more. Not sure what is in there of me. Not sure I want to look.
        I was only 20 on wedding day and I think weighed close to my HS weight. Pictures of Sandra on our wedding day would be worth looking at, not me.
        How daring is everyone else?
        Clyde

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  13. I hit 5′ 7″ in Grade 7. I felt like I towered over everyone. I weighed about 150 when I got married, and that is what I weigh now. Husband doesn’t fit into the tailor made suit we got for him when we married, because he was 6’1″ and weighed only 160 when we got married. He was a really skinny guy. Now he weighs about 215, which is a good weight for him. He gained 30 pounds the first year we were married.

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        1. Nope! Four girls and eleven boys. The woman to the far right was our Danish teacher, a veteran in the trade. Tough, fair, respected, and loved by all. I’m still in contact with the two “girls” between me and Mrs. Nikolajsen.

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    3. They took a photo of my graduating class but I don’t know what happened to it. It isn’t in the yearbook. There were 800+ students in the class. I couldn’t even have found myself.

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  16. No letter jacket, no uniforms, no class ring. I could not WAIT to get out of high school. My (little) growth spurt was way early – I hit 5’6″ by 6th grade and never grew another nano-inch. So I started high school as one of the tall ones and ended high school a little on the short side. I did lose a fair amount of weight in my my senior year – a bet with my father. My reward was getting my ears pierced.

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  17. I had a uniform wen I worked at the KFC. I’d probably still fit into it – it was a kind of stretchy polyester and not really fitted.

    My high school jeans would likely be too tight, but the tops would still fit.

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  18. When the x and I split, she took her wedding dress. It was her self-made green crushed velvet. Hot! I sometimes wonder if we might get together again.

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