City Cousins visit Country Cousins-Rice and Sweet Potato Harvest

On September 23, 2010 we traveled to Wynne, Arkansas with our son, Jeff, and daughter, Jennifer, and her three children to visit with Pat's sister and brother-in-law. Pat's brother-in-law is a rice and soybean farmer. The Brown Brothers Farm is operated by him, his two sons, and his brother. The grandchildren are home schooled so it is easier to get away from school, plus it was a great field trip to observe harvesting rice in action. The Browns had been harvesting their rice for almost a month when we were there and was about a week away from finishing the harvest of about 1500 acres of rice that they grew this year.

It was a dry windy day so it was a very dusty job. Rice chaff was blowing everywhere if you were downwind of the combine. Once we made the mistake of having the car doors open as the combine worked near us. Needless to say we got a lot of trash in our car.

Here is a photo of the field they were working in.
Here is a good example of how the wind was blowing the chaff from the combine.
This is some photos of the rice field from wide angle to very close-up.
The farm uses a John Deere Model 9770STS combine.
This huge machine has a 25 foot header, therefore it can harvest a 25 foot wide path as it moves around the rice field. The combine can harvest between 40-50 acres of rice per day. The grain basket on the combine holds about 300 bushels and it takes about 15 minutes to fill the basket.
When the basket is nearly full, one of the farm hands drives up beside the combine with a tractor pulling a grain cart that holds about 800 bushels. The combine can unload it's basket at the rate of 198 bushels per minute with it's 26 foot unloading auger, so it only takes about 1.5 minutes to empty the basket. Unloading is done while the combine is moving.
Here are photos of the combine offloading it's basket of rice.
After the combine has dumped it's basket load of rice, the farm hand quickly takes the grain cart to one of the waiting grain trucks, an 18 wheeler with a grain trailer that can hold about 1500 bushels. The grain cart can off load it's cart of rice at the rate of 500 bushels a minute, so it empties it's 300 bushels it just took from the combine in less than a minute. As soon as the cart is emptied into the grain trailer, it is quickly driven to catch up with the combine before it's basket is full again. This grain trailer is heaping full after about an hour and a half of combining.
Each of the grandchildren got to ride in the combine and the tractor pulling the grain cart.

Jacob:
Alex:
Jessica & Granddad (Her mother, Jennifer took this close-up from the grain cart tractor as it was taking on rice from the combine).

Alex at the controls of the combine (not moving at this time!!).
Close-up of the header from combine cab.
Photo of combine header as taken from the cab of the grain cart tractor.
Jacob in grain cart tractor.
Alex in grain cart tractor.
Jessica in grain cart tractor.
Jennifer in grain cart tractor (my brother-in-law Charlie in front of tractor).
Close-up of Jessica in the grain cart tractor. This photo was taken by her mother from the combine.
My nephew, Corbin, always has his hand on the joystick that controls many of the combine's operation functions.
Grain truck.
The Brown Brothers Farm has four of these tractor trailer rigs. At least one or two are at the elevator where they take their grain for drying and storage before it is sold. One of their farm hands stays at the elevator and moves their trucks up in line as needed. Here is my nephew, Roger, rolling the tarp cover over a full trailer ready to be taken to the elevator.
This truck is ready to be taken to the elevator. Corbin handles the combine and Roger handles driving the trucks to the elevator. Roger is an experienced big rig driver, he was an over the road trucker for several years. For this load Jennifer, the kids, and my son, Jeff, all piled in the cab to go with Roger on this run. The truck has a sleeper cab, so it was not too crowded with five on board.
I rode with Charlie as we followed the grain truck. As we got to the elevator, it's parking lot was lined up with trucks ready to unload.
Before a truck is emptied, a sample of the rice is taken for moisture determination and inspected for presence of any weed or wild grain seeds. Here is Jennifer and the kids on the platform where a elevator worker is taking a sample.
The sample is taken via a "thief" tube where a sample of grain is sucked up by vacuum from deep within the load of grain.
This sample is checked for any other seed than rice.
This display board shows the different kinds of "wild" seeds that the attendant is looking for.
The moisture content of the rice is also determined. The amount of moisture determines how much the farmer will have to pay for drying the rice along with storage costs.

This control board shows the diagram of all of the storage silos at the elevator and the silo that this load of rice is being sent to.
If a grain trailer does not have bottom dump for emptying, then a wheel block is lifted up behind the rear wheels and the tractor-trailer rig on the ramp is tilted up to empty from the back as these photos show.
All of the Brown Brothers Farm grain trucks have bottom dump and the rig is driven over the grates of the elevator and the bottom dumps are opened and the grain falls right into the sump where the grain is then lifted to the proper storage bin by an elevator.

This was a fun afternoon of watching the rice harvest. It was very educational for all of us. I grew up on a farm. But we raised cotton, and growing and harvesting rice and soybeans is much different. As soon as the Browns finished the rice harvest, their 1200 acres of soybeans were ready for harvest. It was a dry fall so without much delays due to rain, they were completely finished with all of their harvest before November. If they have a wet fall, harvest can go on through the month of November. Too much rain can beat down plants and the combine will not be able to get it all.

The rice and soybeans are planted with a grain drill that plants a 40 foot wide path. With that wide of planter it is difficult to see where the planter was on the last round, so the tractor is controlled by GPS navigation that takes over after the equipment is turned around at the end of the field. After turning around, the GPS navigation takes over and guides the tractor at the correct planter spacing with no hands on the steering wheel. Look Ma no hands!! Corbin does all the planting with this high tech equipment. The levees that are plowed into the rice and soybean fields for irrigation are surveyed with laser beams. Charlie handles all the levee surveying. Roger is in charge of all irrigation operations. Over twenty 10" water wells pump all the water necessary for irrigation of the rice and soybeans.

On April 2, 2006, the day before they were to start the spring planting of that year's rice crop, two F3 tornados met just over Charlie & Bunny's farm home and the farm shop. Charlie & Bunny were not harmed as they rode out the storm in their attached carport. But the house, the farm shop, their many grain bins (with drying facilities) and farm equipment were destroyed. As it was the day before planting, all equipment was there as it had just been serviced to be ready for the next day. At that time they had two combines. These combines were rolled up in an unidentifiable ball by the huge storm. They delayed planting for a week while they moved the house furnishings into temporary storage with the help of their neighbors and friends. As there was little rain in the storm, most of the furnishings were undamaged but were very dirty. They leased equipment to start planting a week later. Here is a link to a Google Satellite view of the shop and grain bins. The farm house can be seen just to the west across the road from the shop. Today's Google Satellite view of the area is pre 2006 so the view is what the site looked like before the storm. The farm shop is the building in the upper left of the grain bins, at the intersection of the roads. The other buildings near the shop are equipment storage sheds. The house was still standing, but the shop and all the buildings around it and the grain storage bins took the brunt of the storm and were all blown away. The shop and the equipment storage shed has been rebuilt with larger and more modern facilities. At the present time they have no plans to rebuild the grain storage. They now take harvested rice directly to either Producers Rice or Riceland Rice drying and storage elevators. They lease local bins for soybean storage from farmers that no longer use them. Charlie & Bunny bought a house about 10 miles east of the farm in the city of Wynne. If you buy Riceland Rice, some of it may have got its start on the Brown Brothers Farm.

On the way back from the elevator to Charlie's house, we passed a large sweet potato farm. One of the Brown's friends is the largest sweet potato farmer in the state of Arkansas. They farm over 1000 acres of the best sweet potatoes to be found. How do I know? I have eaten many of his potatoes and they are delicious. It was sweet potato harvest time, also. But the digging crew had stopped for the day. We did take some photos of the specialized equipment that is used to dig the sweet potatoes.

This is a side view of one the mechanical diggers. This equipment is pulled by a tractor and digs two rows at a time.
A front view shows the diggers that slip under ground below the potatoes. The potatoes are then carried up the conveyor belt while most of the dirt falls through.
A close-up of the digging blade.
Six farm workers stand on each side of the two conveyors and sort the potatoes in various baskets based on grades. When these baskets are full they are emptied in huge crates behind them.
These are definitely keepers.

Rear view of digging equipment.
In past years I have seen this operation in action with Charlie and we gleaned behind the equipment to pick up about two five gallon buckets of the culls that are allowed to roll off the back of the conveyors. Even these culls were not bad eating potatoes.
The crates of sweet potatoes are hauled to a huge climate controlled warehouse. Crates of potatoes are stored in long aisles of very high stacks. When an order is filled for a customer, a crate of potatoes is dumped into a potato washer and graded again before packing in boxes to be delivered to the customer. I have been in this warehouse and observed the washing and packing operation.

The grand kids enjoyed all the harvest operations but when we went to the farm shop, Charlie brought out the 4 wheeler that Roger uses to run levees during irrigation. That is when they had the most fun, driving the 4 wheeler around the shop grounds. They begged their uncle Charlie to take them back the next day for more of this fun.

Jacob got to drive their smallest farm tractor. He ran it in low gear with very little throttle, however he was thrilled.
My daughter, Jennifer, took several of the photos for this blog.