In the Grain

Cooper Morris ’08 lends a hand in the great American wheat harvest

by Cooper Morris ’08

April 1, 2009

During a lull in the harvest, due to wet weather, Cooper Morris and other members of his crew visited St. Mary Lake in Montana’s Glacier National Park.

Shortly after graduating from Dickinson in May with a degree in economics, I took a job with a custom harvesting crew and participated in the American wheat harvest. The United States is the world’s fourth-largest wheat producer behind China, the European Union and India, and the crop accounts for 22 percent of global wheat production (25 billion bushels are produced globally).

Of the 2.5 million bushels produced in the United States, 50 percent will be exported and the remainder used for cattle feed, seed for next year’s crop, flour and other food. A bushel of wheat (60 pounds) produces 42 pounds of flour. It takes a combine seconds to harvest enough wheat to produce an individual’s yearly consumption of wheat flour, 137.9 pounds per person.

HARD-WORKING CREWS

The American harvest is unique because the Midwest wheat belt stretches about 1,500 miles, south to north, creating a continuously ripening wheat crop that harvesting crews can follow. Crews start in Texas and make their way through Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, Idaho and Wyoming, to end up in the Dakotas, Montana, Idaho and sometimes Alberta, Canada. As jobs are finished, wheat farther north is ready for harvest. Crews relentlessly follow the wheat from mid-May through August. Some rews contain as many as 10 combines and others only two. No matter how large the crew, everyone works seven days a week, 15-plus hours a day with time off only for church on Sunday or if it rains.

A significant portion of the United States wheat crop is harvested by these custom harvesting crews, which consist of combines, trucks, grain carts and workers. Wheat, like corn, soybeans and many other crops, is harvested by combines. The heart of the harvesting operation, combines are complex machines that cut the crop, thrash the seeds from the plant, then separate the two. The seeds go into a storage bin, and the remainder of the plant is thrown out the back of the combine onto the ground.

To be as productive as possible, crews try to keep their combines cutting at all times. Instead of stopping to unload, they drive the trucks alongside the combines as they cut and unload the grain on the go. Larger crews have tractor-pulled grain carts. They unload grain from the combines into tractor-trailers that are too large and heavy to drive into the field.

HANDS-ON HARVESTER

On June 3, Bennett Albertson ’09 and I pulled into Salina, Kansas off Interstate 70, having left northwest New Jersey’s mountainous forests to reach the endless, rolling Kansas Flint Hills. We had just crushed 1,355 miles of open highway in two days, watching the landscape change before our eyes. Bennett was dropping me off before heading farther west to Colorado for the summer, while I was being picked up by Janie Ediger, my new boss’ wife and his son Ethan in Salina. We parked at a Wendy’s and as we walked in, a fleet of cars with all sorts of contraptions on their roofs came flying into the parking lot: tornado chasers. I turned to Bennett and smiled. I had already recognized the freedom that came with the Midwest’s endless horizon. This was a land where tornadoes ran free. It was going to be a fun summer.

Around noon, Mrs. Ediger picked me up in their maroon Buick sedan, and we headed south to Inman, Kansas. Later that afternoon, in Hutchinson, I declared myself a Kansas citizen, took some driving tests and acquired a commercial driver’s license permit at the Hutchinson DMV. Hutchinson has the second-largest grain elevator (grain-storage facility) in the world. It is a half a mile long and more than 100 feet tall. The original plan was for me to spend the night at my boss’ farm in Inman and then head south to meet up with the crew, but plans change. Eric Miller, a 25-year-old retired harvester, picked me up in a Kenworth T800 grain truck, and we headed southwest to Altus, Oklahoma. We flew down the open highway blasting country music and talking about what I could expect from my first year on harvest. I would work very long hours and see most of the Midwest.

Eric Miller and I rolled into Altus, Okla., at 1 a.m., June 3, just as the harvesting crew was coming in from the field. Altus has a huge Air Force base that employs most of the 22,000 residents and is surrounded by endless fields of wheat. The rest of the land is rugged, filled with mesquite trees, ravines and red dirt. Temperatures easily reach 105 degrees by noon. I was introduced to Tyler Fisher and my new home on wheels, a 1950s Spartan trailer with two beds in the back, a bathroom and half-kitchen in the middle and a bunk bed in the front. I threw my sheets on the bunk bed and passed out. The next morning breakfast was served at 7 a.m. sharp, and we were in the field by 8 a.m. We did not get back to the trailer until 2 a.m. The tone set during my first 24 hours on the crew would stay constant through the season.

GETTING TO KNOW THE CREW

I worked for Ediger and Pauls Custom Harvesting, which consisted of two crews. Most of the time we worked separately, but we came together a number of times to finish bigger jobs. I worked for Randy Ediger, who has two Case IH 2388 combines with McDon 36-foot draper headers, three Kenworth grain trucks and a five-member crew. The core members last summer were Randy, his son Ethan, 16, and me. Tyler Fisher, 24, and Daniel Yogibera, 25, started the season and later were replaced by two others.

On a good day, with both machines running, we could harvest 300 acres of wheat. Each combine could hold about 225 bushels of wheat in its bin. When a combine was almost full, the operator summoned a driver to bring a truck into the field to meet the combine. The wheat was unloaded as the combine continued to cut.

The grain trucks could hold about 600 bushels of wheat, equal to about two and a half combine bins or 40,000 pounds of grain. Once filled, the trucks drove to the local grain elevator where the farmer had an account. The truck was weighed as it entered the grain storage facility. It dumped its load into a grain pit then was reweighed as it exited. The difference between the entry and exit weights told the elevator’s management how much wheat had been dumped. A grain elevator carried the wheat from the grain pit to a specific bin that contained wheat matching its moisture percentage, protein level and general quality. Farmers could sell the wheat immediately at the current market price or pay the elevator to store the grain until a later date. The elevator charged the farmer a percentage if the load exceeded a specific moisture (normally 13.5 percent) or was contaminated with bits of weeds, rocks or dirt.

A DAY IN THE LIFE

On a typical day Janie Ediger served breakfast at about 7 a.m. After breakfast, we made lunches from cold cuts, chips and homemade deserts. We picked up red diesel on our way to the field, greased and gassed the combines, and started cutting wheat around 9:30 a.m. I started as a combine operator, spending 14 hours of my day inside the air-conditioned, FM-radio-equipped cab.

My office was the rolling golden wheat fields of the plains, where the heat is hotter than hell and the sunsets are prettier than heaven. I only got out of my combine cab to unplug the feeder house if I picked up some dirt or to disconnect my header when changing fields. We cut wheat as long as the grain elevators took it and ate picnic dinners that Janie and her daughter Jessica brought to the field. Dinner was always a great time, normally served around 6 p.m., when the sun was beginning to set and the air had cooled. Then it was back to my combine cab. When the grain elevators closed, we filled our trucks and headed back into town, normally around 2 a.m. We harvested 3,700 acres of wheat in two weeks in Altus. The fields that we cut ranged in size from 80 to 400 acres. Most were perfect squares or rectangles, but a few were circles or abstract shapes with encroaching brush or tree lines.

TEN TOWNS IN SEVEN STATES

From June through August, we cut wheat in 10 towns in seven states: Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana. Bolts of lighting in Oklahoma are miles long, western Kansas is flatter than a calm ocean, and Montana has a rustic, indescribable beauty that must be experienced firsthand. I spent a lot of time awestruck by beautiful landscapes and skies. Most of the towns we cut around were very small: a grain elevator, a church or two, a bar and a convenience store. Towns in the Midwest are islands of green in an otherwise amber sea of pasture and wheat. Most people in these small Midwest towns are God serving and hard working. They work for agricultural companies, schools, oil refineries, trucking companies, local small businesses or farms. Many who do not farm for a living do on the side.

THE RING OF FIRE

My second week on harvest included a 60-acre wheat fire and a tornado. The day of the fire, it was 105 degrees by noon with 30 miles per hour gusts of wind. We pulled into a 160-acre circular field through a 25-foot-wide gate, carefully making several turns to swing the 36-foot header through the opening. As usual, we made a couple of laps around the field then cut out the center-pivot irrigation system, which is a widely used watering system in the west. It has a well in the center, and a long arm with sprinklers on wheels pivots around it. We were about halfway through the field when I heard “FIRE!” booming from the radio. Immediately I began searching the field. Then I saw the pool of fire forming in my side-view mirror about 10 feet off the back of my combine. My first reaction was to jump out and go fight the flames, but Randy’s voice came over the radio, “Get all the machinery out of the field, now.”

I flung the combine into third gear and raced across the field. Both machines were on the south side, where the fire had begun, and the gate was at the far north side. The wind was carrying the raging flames in the same direction. Each time I looked back to see the fire I couldn’t believe how quickly it was sprawling in our direction. The wall of flames extended 15 feet high. We had to go around the irrigation system, so by the time we had traveled the 300 yards to the gate, the fire had progressed 200 yards. By the time Randy had passed through the narrow gate the fire was 30 yards from my combine’s rear. Ethan had jumped into my combine to help me swing the gate, but it was too late. We made a dash for the flank of the fire and tried to circle back around it. As we raced down its side we watched for any sign it would change direction and prevent us from reaching safety. We made it. The fire had scorched a 40-yard-by-300-yard strip in three minutes.

A FIELD OF DIRT AND ASH

We parked in the black spot left by the fire. After spraying the engine compartment down with water from a fire extinguisher, we ran to save the irrigation motor. The wood frame was on fire. Adrenalin pumping, Ethan and I ripped that structure apart with ease. But we couldn’t save the irrigations arms’ 20 tires that had melted in the flames. By this time, the fire department arrived in full force. Some firefighters entered the field with plows and began making a dirt moat around the flames. Others drew a picket line at the far north side of the field that bordered a road. Beyond that road lay 20 miles of dry, unharvested wheat fields. If the fire breached the road it would have spread to the next town. The battle lasted about an hour.

By its end, 50 percent of the field was dirt and ash. Our crew, the firefighters and the others who had stopped to help were tired, and our skin was charcoal black. Fire trucks dumped their last water on smoldering trees and stumps. Ethan and I drove the combine back to the entrance of the field, where we parked the equipment for the night. I lay in the back of the service truck as we drove into town, half amazed and half scared. We ate dinner back at the trailer and then hit the hay. It was an exhausting day, but I gained a newfound respect for fire. Randy stayed at the field until midnight as the fire kept reigniting due to smoldering tree stumps.

The next day, Randy and I went to work on my combine, which had started the fire. A bearing had gone bad on the feeder house driveshaft, and the heat produced had ignited some chaff particles in the engine compartment. Those particles had fallen into the field and started the fire. It took us four hours to take the thing apart. It began to rain later, so the other combine had to stop, and we all headed back into town. While we stopped at McDonalds to eat, a fierce storm came in and, for a while, there was a white out. You could not see three feet out the window.

A DEBRIS-FILLED MESS

When the storm subsided, we drove toward the trailer court. On our way back we noticed a distinct trail of snapped tree trunks, destroyed buildings and rolled-over cars. Ethan and Janiewere ahead of Randy and me. Ethan’s solemn voice came over the radio, “Dad, a tornado flipped the trailer.” It had whirled right through the middle of town, destroying everything in its path. The workers’ trailer bunker had been flipped on its side, and the trailer court and surrounding area was a debris-filled mess. Bricks, sections of aluminum roofing and shattered planks were scattered everywhere. The sky took on an eerie green color, and a white sun set against this green-tinted backdrop. With many power lines destroyed, the night brought total darkness. The atmosphere was right out of one of the old Halloween movies. We stayed in a motel that night, which had no lights, and Tyler, Dan and I slept like rocks.

With admirable strength Randy and the other Edigers dealt with the natural disasters. There may have been an initial gasp of “Oh, shoot,” but then it was “OK, let’s deal with this.” The next day, another harvesting crew gave us a trailer to use for the rest of the season. We moved to another trailer court, this one with a pool, and continued working like nothing had happened.

Not only did I learn a lot about working on machinery but also to keep a cool head and work through problems. Machinery does two things: runs and breaksdown. Crew bosses are all ace mechanics who can fix anything with a pair of pliers, a crescent wrench and a welder, whether it’s a brokenseparator belt, transmission or header.

MANGLED LIKE A STRAND OF DNA

The most impressive repair came toward the season’s end in Montana, when Justin, 16, managed to flip a 36-foot, $50,000 wheat header in transit. Headers have wheels that allow them to be pulled behind the combines when traveling between fields. Justin had swerved to steer clear of a road sign, flipped and crushed the header. When I saw it, I thought, “Unfixable.” The thing was mangled like a strand of DNA. Four hours later, using only a front-end loader and a chain, Randy had the header looking and running like new.

FARMERS’ TRAINING GROUND

Wheat-harvesting crews play an essential role in getting America’s wheat crop to market. Equally important, harvesting crews are a training ground for many future American farmers. Many young men and women in the agricultural world go on harvest during their late teens or early 20s to learn how to run an efficient farming operation. Almost all of the farmers I met told stories of their wheat-harvest experiences—sleeping in the back of grain trucks, shoveling wheat from truck beds that did not dump, operating open-cab combines that provided no shelter from the heat, dust and roaring engines. Harvest is like a farming boot camp that demands that its crew members work in a sleep-deprived, stressful work environment. It is an unforgettable, rewarding experience that embeds and reinforces essential life lessons and where lifelong friendships and stories are born.

The true heroes of harvest are the crew managers and their families who do this year in and year out. Looking back, I realize how much work we did and how much ground we covered. It is a testament to their strength and passion that they do this job year after year.

BIO NOTE:

Cooper Morris ’08 spent the winter in Park City, Utah, working, skiing, snowboarding and studying for his GMATs. He grew up in rural New Jersey, working on farms during the summer and participating in 4-H. Facts about the wheat harvest used in this article were provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Last year, 56 millions acres of wheat were harvested in the United States, producing 2.5 billion bushels of wheat. A bushel of wheat weighs 60 pounds, which puts 2008 total production well over 120 billion pounds.

Cooper Morris poses with the combine he operated last summer. Modern combines weigh 25,000 to 40,000 pounds, their engines put out 250 horsepower to 400 horsepower, and they hold about 250 bushels of wheat in their storage bins. They have come a long way since the first horse-drawn combine was invented in 1838.

Randy and Janie Ediger (right) watch as one of their harvesting crews makes its way from southwestern to northwestern Kansas.

As the conclusion of the season, Cooper Morris’ crew harvests wheat in Shelby, Mont., near the border of Alberta, Canada.