Oklahoma Wheat Country
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Special thanks to
Mark Hodges, Executive Director -
Oklahoma Wheat
Commission
Thanks also to:
Keith Kisling,
Wheat Commissioner
Burlington, OK
Jim E. Morford,
General Manager
Burlington Coop Assoc.
(Grain Elevator)
Lloyd Wente of Wente Harvesting
for an incomparable combine experience.
Mr.
Wente is a cutting crew foreman; he's been cutting grain for 45 years.
Trailor trucks bringing freshly harvested
grain to the elevator.
On a visit to Oklahoma in June, 2003 Professor Bread received a wonderful tour of real American wheat country courtesy of the Oklahoma Wheat Commission.
It's harvest time. Beautiful "amber waves of grain" cover much of the Oklahoma countryside.
On some of the more expansive fields
one sees wheat almost to the horizon.
A cutting crew with four large combines prepares for the harvest.
This giant combine cuts a swath of grain 36 feet wide!
These impressive machines cut the grain and then thresh it (this separates the grain from the straw). These wheat seeds are then collected in a bin behind the cab of the combine.
Although this bin holds nearly one ton of grain, it fills quite quickly. The combine operator radios to another crew member in a tractor that pulls a huge grain container. A boom swings out from the combine and shoots the grain into this container without having to stop harvesting as both vehicles move side by side...
Professor Bread exiting a combine.
Tall grain elevators that dot the countryside store the cut grain.
A system of lifts carries the grain to the top of the elevator where it travels on a long conveyor belt to a particular storage tank.
The beautiful view from the top of an elevator - the tallest structure on the landscape.
Grain eventually gets loaded on trucks or trains for shipment to mills.
© 2005 Gary M. Gomer
