Thursday, August 18, 2011

Farming- Part 5

Well it is time for the latest version of the Prairie Farm Report, or my version anyways.

Things here in Alberta are kicked into high gear now! Many farmers are sitting in their combines, tractors, and trucks right now doing the silage for this year. Silage is when grain is cut before it is fully ripe, and chopped up. Instead of laying it down on the ground, it is put into large trucks and hauled to a pit. The silage that comes in in not a dry feed, so when it makes it to the pit it must be packed to be air tight so it will not mold. The feed is then stored until the winter months and fed to the livestock, mainly cattle. This can be used as a replacement for hay or instead of supplementing with grain.

Anyways, back to the crops! Here are the latest pictures of my two fields I have been watching since spring.


The canola crop looked like this 3 weeks ago. It was in full bloom and had such pretty yellow flowers. Those flowers have now all fallen off as the crop ripens. Soon it will be cut and let lay there to ripen and let the seeds in the pods turn from a green to a black color.


This barley crop is also coming along nicely. It is starting to turn a golden yellow color, and lose the green color. This crop could go for silage and be cut early, or it will be let to fully ripen and dry and be a really nice golden yellow color when it is ready to be harvested. I will keep an eye on it and see what happens!

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