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Winter canola harvest beginsBy Jennifer M. Latzke Summer harvest for many farmers in parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas may now be an increasingly busy time of year. Growers in the southern High Plains have begun raising Roundup Ready winter canola in many of their fields as a rotation with winter wheat to effectively battle weed problems. However, because this crop ripens at the same pace as winter wheat, farmers are also finding their summers a little more hectic. This is the case with the Bob Schrock family, Kiowa, Kan., as they began their yearly harvest of winter canola and winter wheat June 11. Schrock, who also grows hard red winter wheat in neighboring fields, has to carefully balance the harvest schedule of his two crops. Rather than cutting his standing canola with a combine, Schrock prefers to cut the crop using a swather with a draper header that lays it out in giant windrows. The canola will then be left to dry in the field, and then picked up later with a combine using a different header. While the canola dries, Schrock and his family and their custom harvesters will move on to cutting wheat the next day. Late in the afternoon, after cutting wheat all day, the Schrocks will then switch out the headers on their combines and harvest canola from sundown until early the next morning. This schedule allows the Schrocks to fill grain carts and trailers for delivery to the local elevator the following morning, while they switch back to harvesting wheat. The OK Cooperative Grain Co., in Kiowa, accepts deliveries of canola, but only at certain times during the day in order to allow the wheat harvest to go unencumbered, Schrock explained. Alan Meyers, general manager, reported Kiowa has accepted about 50,000 bushels of canola, with an average moisture level of 8.5 percent and average test weight of about 51 pounds per bushel. Jennifer M. Latzke can be reached by phone at 620-227-1807, or by e-mail at jlatzke@hpj.com. 6/23/08 Date: 6/19/08
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