2010 Wheat Crop - A Year of Rain, Geese and Wads of Straw

This year we planted 80 acres of wheat on flax stubble. It was a struggle from start to finish. Our troubles began in the fall of 2009 when Sparks Farms baled the flax straw for us. Unfortunately a strong wind came up before the center of the field had been baled, and it blew the straw all over the place. As a result, when it came time to seed, the seed drill was constantly plugged with straw, requiring us to regularly climb under the equipment and pull out wads of straw. Unrelated to the straw, our seeder broke during optimum weather and was fixed just in time for a long period of rain. When we finally got back to seeding, much of the outside of the crop was already growing. We had to try to burn the remaining flax straw so the seeder would work. The rain was so constant all summer we barely found an opportunity when the soil was dry enough to spray herbicide. When a brief spraying opportunity finally came, we quickly did the work, using what chemical we had had in the tank for the other crops. As a result we couldn't take advantage of herbicide donations by Dow and Syngenta. The crop was heavily fertilized, and had lots of water, but it came up quite poor. It would probably have yielded only about 25 to 30 bushels per acre, had the geese not eaten much of it. The final yield on the crop was about 1200 bushels of feed wheat.

This year the money we raise will help support a Nutrition and Food Security project in Bangladesh. This is a 5 year project impacting about 21,000 low income households and addressing poverty (lack of income) and malnutrition in 70 communities.