It's now August which means wheat harvest has come to an end and it's time to do every farmers dreaded hot summer job, baling the wheat trash - the straw.
Baling straw is not quite the same as it was 30 years ago as it seems most people now use large bales that can be moved about by equipment rather than small bales that needed to be lifted and stacked when collected.
Often straw and hay are baled into large square bales or round bales and then moved to a wagon or trailer by tractor and moved into a shed or storage facility.
What is Hay and what is Straw?
Straw - is the 'trash' of the wheat harvest. It's actually the stalk and chaff of the wheat plant. Chaff being kind of a protective casing for the seed to grow in and during the threshing operation it is separated from the seed and blown out the back of the combine along with the stalk.
You can blow the trash as a spread across the field to give back some organic matter for decomposition or you can blow it into stacked rows for bailing. Straw can be used for feed, animal bedding or used for organic waste plants. It can be quite a boost to the value of the wheat crop in years when straw is in short supply. There is debate on the value of spreading or bailing straw since it can be a beneficial part of the soil's life cycle when spread however; bailing provides a product to sell when farm families require the added financial gain in difficult years.
Hay - can be a mix of grass, legumes, or other herbaceous plants that have been cut, dried, and stored for use. Hay is mainly used to feed animals. Animals range from horses, cattle, sheep, guinea pigs and goats. Hay can be helpful when a lush pasture is too rich to feed but, it's not suitable for every animal.
MY STORY
I can recall baling straw as a child and how much I hated that job.
The bales my dad would throw and pile with ease seemed huge, heavy and would always leave scratch marks on my limbs. It was always too hot to wear long sleeves and pants as bailing had to happen with dry hot days for optimal straw.
One year we were blowing straw into wagons to store it loosely so we could later blow it into a second story barn for chicken bedding. I was driving wagons in the field and ended up with mild heat stroke and short of passing out, I ran into a parked wagon. I was sent inside to rest and re-hydrate while everyone finished up the day.
Sometime during one of the last wagon runs, a stone must have been caught in the blower and ignited a fire in the straw wagon which set the dry field on fire burning the wagon to the ground.
The fire department was called to contain the blaze.
Ironically enough, the wagon that burned was the one I had damaged earlier.
It made for a pretty exciting 24 hours and a memorable time I got out of the straw job!
