Monday, September 26, 2016

The Soybean Harvest

The soybean harvest, another sign of fall, is well underway.  I was lucky enough to catch a group of farmers taking the beans off two large cash crop fields up the road, and actually get a picture of the combine, with its 'beanhead' on it.  In fact this was a big enough operation that there were two combines, a tractor and wagon, and a big grain truck


Here comes one of the big combines down the field, accumulating the beans in the bin on the back.

The second combine comes up another row,

Lifts the header and turns abruptly to head back down the field.

Meanwhile, the tractor pulls the grain wagon over beside the big grain truck and empties its load, ready for another one.

It moves back and forth, filling one end of the truck.

 And on an earlier day it occurred to me that many of you have never seen soybeans up close, so here they are.

 Here's an individual soybean plant,

And a closer look at the rather hairy beans.

These are a few beans broken open for you to see.

And here are the beans.

At the same time the corn harvest has started.  I missed them on their lunch break, but this smaller corn harvester cleared the corn field pretty fast.


11 comments:

  1. I've never seen the plants up close. Thanks for sharing! Interesting!

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  2. Despite growing up and working on a farm where soya meal was regularly incorporated into pig feed, I'd never seen the beans up-close-and-personal before. Thanks for continuing my bean education!

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  3. Nice sequence of bean harvest photos. These are busy times in our rural community right now with lots of big farm machines on our local country roads moving between bean and corn fields.

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  4. Great pictures of the harvest.
    Harvesting the soybeans is an interesting process and sets the lady bugs free looking for places to hibernate for the winter, we will soon be invaded once again.

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  5. I am a fan of soybeans and am drinking soymilk in my tea right this minute. I love tofu and tempeh, too. Nice to see how it's harvested. :-)

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  6. I've never actually seen real soybeans, so thanks for the photos.

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  7. Great post and thanks for the closeups of the actual soybeans. They were planted in the field out behind us one year and I never did go see them up close.

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  8. Haven't started harvesting the soy beans here yet but I'm sure it will start any day.
    Each morning I pick open a couple of pods and leave the beans on a post for the birds and each morning they are gone. : )

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  9. I was looking at a Breugel painting of the harvest in a magazine the other day, with lots of really tight close ups of tiny details you might ordinarily miss. How times have changed eh?
    No, I never knew what a soya bean looked like either.

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  10. I hadn't seen a soya bean before either - thank you!

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  11. I've never seen them up close either. This is a busy time of year for them- my cousin has an orchard. Fall's always packed with things to do.

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