What was the poorest crop that youy harvested?

Dick2

Well-known Member
In 1962, I was planting wheat in the spring. I had planned to stop at 4:30 to go to a banquet that evening. Didn't like the looks of the weather so I skipped the banquet and finished planting a 60 acre field just before dark. I left the drill parked next to the road.

It rained all night; I got the drill out of the field the next morning. The rain kept coming and I never got to plant any more seed before it got too late in the season. The wheat only yielded 25 bu/acre; that was our total crop for the year!
 
3 bushel an acre soybeans in 1980...In July that year it was 100-114 degrees every day..In Oct it got wet and had trouble getting 300 acres of wheat sown..
 
I've cut LOTS of soybeans that did less than 5 bpa.I have also pulled countless acres of corn that didnt do 10 bpa.Here in my area insurance will not pay up unless an attempt to harvest field has been made.Lots of the older farmers would cut just enough to get a weight ticket for the insurance and no one was really checking but no one nowadays does that for fear of being accused of cheating the insurance. Insurance around here has got real picky and now they want you to get all that is out there so they can deduct it all from your claim.I would rather combine a field of 400bpa corn and dump 500 times a day than to combine a 100 acre field that yields next to nothing and have to ride ALL DAY LONG just to get a little in the hopper.I really shouldnt mind it though because I get paid the same for combining the acre either way!
 




I have threshed frosted soybeans @ 3 bpa. corn down to 2bpa. Wheat at 5 bpa. Those years aew depressing.
 
1988 corn crop was driest, made 5-7 rounds with the combine, dumped the hopper not because it was full but the truck was getting too far away. Now I have difficulty making one round on the same field.

Somewhere in the early 80s was terrible wet. Couldn't get 1/4 of the farm planted, and much of the stuff was pale stunted poor, drowned.

In the mid 1970s dad got hit with hail, beans were awful, he ended up swathing them and combining with a dummy head. Drove all day to get a hopper full. That was perhaps the worst crop....

Paul
 
Few things on the farm I have found as agonizing as trying to harvest a junk crop. Almost like watching a slow death. You just want to get it over with.
 
Sometime around 1970 we had a very wet spring followed by semi drought summer. Dad planted the first beans July 4th and planted right at 115 acres of them as I remember. Earlier in the spring he had contracted 1000 bushel at the elevator and he damn near didnt harvest enough beans to cover the contract.
 
1993. Our summer was wet and cool. My corn averaged 49 bpa. It was the only fall that I could average a whopping 3 MPH with the 105 and 635 cornhead. I forget what the beans did.Jim
 
Worst Ive seen was this year. Had 70 acres of corn that didnt even put an ear on so the disk harvested it. Had several corn fields that got 10bpa and had several bean fields that came in at a whole 2bpa.
 
Not my crop but a (rather poor) camera phone video my son sent me while working for Eyster Harvesting. This was near Kanarado KS in the fall of 2011. Think this quarter went 11 bpa and loooks even worse than it is due to a wind storm that blew the tops away.
Poor corn harvest
<iframe width="470" height="425" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/va9h7NLiGNU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
I had several poor crops but the worst was in 1999 lost 800 ac to a massive hail storm..That storm took out 90,000 ac.'s. Located in western NE and NE Colo. There were also 23 tornado's in that storm. One took ten 60 foot tall cedar trees out of my orchard. That tornado went right over my house. It also did 23,000 Dollars damage to my house and ten thousand to my trucks and tractors.
 
A number of years ago we had an early spring but then several nights in the teens and a heavy snow around Easter time. Pretty much wiped out all the wheat since it was already quite far along. I was riding in the R62 with my FIL (since the grain cart I operate wasn't needed much) and asked him this same question. Without hesitation he said "this is the worst" and he has been farming for all of his 70+ years. Some guys with good insurance didn't even get their combines out that summer and wrote everything off.
 

Was that 2007? Spring came early the wheat looked beautiful, it had already headed out and then the snow and ice hit. Ours still made 25 but before the storm it could have gone 60.
 
Yeah, 2007 sounds about right. Like you said, we
had lots of early warmth and moisture and the wheat
was looking like it was going to be ripe by Memorial
Day. Things were pretty ugly after the snow and ice
all melted.
 
My dad always said 1961 was the worst. What wheat he did combine might have made 10 bushel per acre. He cut a lot of the crop to bale for feed figuring it was the best plan.
My worst was 1988. Dry and hot produced a short thin wheat crop. Nice quality but barely ten bushels per acre. Should have had a direct cut header but at the time I was still swathing everything. The Massey pull type 21 foot laid as good a swath as was possible in that short crop. The Sund pickup on the 510 was wound right out to full speed trying to scratch up that thin swath into the 510 Massey. I don't think I have ever done so many acres in a day before.
The barley turned out a little better and I was able to make a fairly good swath as seen in this video from August 88.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SBmQOzj0n8
 
i would like to thank each and everyone of you'll
for the years of hard work and pain all have sufferd trying to raise families and feed america
my whole heartly thanks mopargeek
 

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