Harvesting
In the U.S, the wheat harvest will usually start in early May in southern Texas reach its peak in the hard red winter areas of the Southwest in early June and end in October in the northern portions of the red spring wheat area.
Many years ago, the common method of harvesting grains was the binder, which may possibly still be used on some small farms. Binders have been replaced nearly everywhere by combines, large and small. These machines cut and thresh the crop and are usually self-propelled. Spring wheat may be windrowed or swathed before threshing.After combining, most spring and winter is either stored in the farms for a time or promptly taken by truck to local elevators where it is loaded on railway cars and carried to terminal markets. Each year, better highways and larger payloads increase the distances wheat can be hauled economically by truck. Particularly in the corn belt area, soft red winter wheat is often stored on the farm since smaller amounts are produced in that region and adequate on-farm storage facilities are not prohibited in cost.
Cleaning
Most grain are not cleaned either by farmers pr by country elevators. Wheat delivered at an elevator is sampled and graded with considerable accuracy and the elevator operator usually makes a price adjustment on the basis of moisture content, test eight, foreign material and damaged or broken kernel. It is not customary to clean or blend to adjust the grade at small country elevators; however, where facilities permit, it is often possible to improve the grade of some of the wheat by properly mixing different batches of grain held in storage. The most important why wheat is no cleaned once it has been weighed and graded is that to discard any material whatever results in a weight loss and, therefore, an economic loss. Normally, whatever material is removed from wheat in the cleaning process has less value than wheat; consequently, cleaning results in a direct financial loss, the task of cleaning is left to the processor.
Wheat received at terminal elevators may be treated in a variety of ways, such as by drying, washing, cleaning, separating or sizing. Also, various grades and qualities can be collected and blended to supply processors with wheat of uniform quality in large quantities. It is common practice to blend different lots of wheat to obtain the highest grade for the largest amount of grain.
Harvesting and Cleaning the Wheat
