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05/26/2009: "Unpacking the Crate"

I finally got around to opening up the mystery crate. Grandpa Dennis had come up from California for a visit, and we decided to tackle opening it up. I was glad to have his help - it was hard to get it open!

Before going further, however, I want to fill you in crops. Specifically, the wheat crop. Here's a photo I took about two weeks ago out in the wheat field.



Notice anything missing? It's a lovely, lush wheat crop... except it has no tillers, or stalks with wheat seeds on them! In the past few weeks I've been growing quite concerned about the lack of tiller formation, ever since I read this OSU Extension Service Publication, Early Growth and Development of Cereals. I've been counting leaves on plants, looking for coleoptile tillers, anxiously waiting for tiller development. My fear was that the soil was missing some essential nutrient that result in a very poor, or even no, wheat crop this year. As it says in the publication linked above:

If, on the other hand, a plant is grown under stress, tiller buds may remain dormant, or tillers may abort once they start to develop. The presence or absence of tillers is an indication of whether or not a plant developed under stressed conditions.

Some nights I've been laying in bed, wondering what I'm going to do with an acre of wheat straw. Last Friday I was putting in some drip irrigation for a bean project I've started on, and I looked over at the neighboring wheat crop; nothing seemed to have changed, though I didn't look at it too closely. Three days later, on Monday, I was back to finish the drip irrigation and I took a moment to inspect the wheat.





An explosion of tillers! Tillers everywhere! How did that happen?! I don't know how I could have missed them three days earlier, but they must have been at least present to some degree. Now there are definitely a healthy number of tillers, and they seem to bearing big, fat wheat kernels. The crop is OK after all (though, of course, there are still a number of possible hazards that may destroy the crop before late July harvest... locusts, incessant rain, UG-99 wheat rust, pestilential seagulls, alien abductions).

So what does all this have to do with the mystery crate? Well, if you plant wheat you have to have some way to harvest it... and thresh the kernels from the tillers. The sickle bar mower will serve nicely for the former. The mystery box has, as some of my friends have guessed correctly, a thresher in it. This was our first peek into the box, after taking off the cover.



A side view, showing the general layout. The PTO connection is on the left, along with the attachment to the tractor's 3 point levers.



Here's a diagram from the manual showing the general layout of the machine. The manual refers to its use for rice, but it can be adjusted for just about any dry grain crop. I also ordered the accessories that should allow me to use it on beans and dry peas like fava.



The thresher was built in Italy by Colombini Sergio & C.. Sr Colombini was really very accommodating and professional to work with - all my communication was directly with the owner. My friend Carolyn made the initial contact in Italian, and subsequent communication was in a hodge-podge of Italian, English, and computer-translated ital-ish. I especially appreciated that he set up the overseas portion of the transfer, and I just had to arrange the receiving at the Port of Portland and transport to the farm.



So, there are some exciting times ahead... a lot of wheat to be cut, threshed, stored, given away, sold... stay tuned.