Barley: Cultivation and harvesting

There are two types of barley seed stock commonly available: malting and feed varieties.
*Malting varieties: Must meet rigorous standards for germination quality, kernel size and weight, kernel plumpness, and moisture content.
*Feed varieties: Varieties that do not meet malting industry standards

A moderately cool and dry climate is most suited to barley. Although barley is able to withstand heat in a dry climate or high humidity in a cool climate, it performs poorly in a hot and humid climate.

Barley is a drought resistant crop and requires 390 to 430 mm of rainfall for optimum yield. As barley is sensitive to nitrogen and water hence, field should be well leveled.

Barley cannot tolerate poorly drained soil, grows well when pH values are between 6.0– 8.5. It generally grows better than any other small grain in highly alkaline soils. Best soils for growing barley are well-drained loams and clay loams.

Soils with a pH lower than 6 may induce aluminum toxicity, leading to poor growth. Barley is more sensitive to very wet conditions but more tolerant to alkaline soil than the other small grains.

In irrigated areas, field should be prepared after pre sowing irrigation for proper germination.

Barley can be grown under irrigated, rainfed and limited irrigation conditions. Generally, it requires 2-3 irrigations for better yield. The malt barley requires 3 irrigations to ensure better yield, grain uniformity and grain quality.

After physiological maturity, 10 or 15 days are required to harvest barley in temperate dry lands. Harvesting time should be decided when barley stem becomes dry enough to be broken by hand easily in semi-arid and arid areas.

In general, barley is ready for harvest in about 4 months after sowing; some varieties in 60 days. It should be harvested as soon as it reaches the moisture content of 13 %.

Seed is harvested mechanically with a combine and thresher. Seed harvested for use in the malting industry must be harvested with care, as cracked or skinned seeds are not acceptable to industry standards.

Barley grain absorbs water from the atmosphere and should be stored at an appropriate dry place to avoid storage pest losses.
Barley: Cultivation and harvesting

Harvesting field corn

Harvest is the most expensive field activity in the production of corn for grain. The timing, duration and the way the harvest is carried out have a direct bearing on corn quality, yield and especially grower’s profit.

Field corn is harvested after the plants died and turned a light yellow beige. The ears are hard, dry and dented and usually start to hang down from the sides of the plants.

Ears of field corn are harvested by machine that strips the matured ears from the stalks. If harvested in wet weather corn may have to be dried before it is stored. The tine of harvesting is quite critical and is usually about 18 days after silking.

Usually, it is allowed to dry on the stalk in the field is harvested and stored in small roofed bins or silos with metal or wore mesh walls

Combines in the industrialized world incorporate the ear packing, husking, shelling and cleaning process into one machine. The cobs, husks and stover are left in the field.

Much of the corn storage is done on the farm, since most of the corn crop is used as feed for animals.

Stalks and leaves may be harvested, chopped, and placed in the piles or in silos to form ensilage for animal feed. Stalks and leaves also be chopped and returned to the soil for humus.
Harvesting field corn

Harvesting and Cleaning the Wheat

Harvesting and Cleaning the Wheat
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