Friday 16th May: Harvest
On Monday 11th May, we began the wheat harvest. The harvest usually takes place nearer the beginning of May, but it was postponed due to wet weather. The wheat seems to be strong and healthy.
We are cutting very high, about 7 or 8 inches from the head, leaving long stalks. We are doing this to protect the soil, and the soy and mung bean growing in it (see Tuesday 5th May: Bhat (Soy) and Mung Sowing ). Ideally we would cut out the majority of the stalk in the usual way, and throw the straw back on the field as mulch (see Fukuoka: Method ), but the threshing machine we can use destroys the straw, so that it can't be used as mulch.
With the wheat having been harvested, we can see the shoots of the soy and mung bean that we sowed on 5th May (see Tuesday 5th May: Bhat (Soy) and Mung Sowing ). We are slightly concerned that the crop seems to be sparsely distributed.
We took a sample measurement of the harvest, and the result was 350g per square meter. We hope to improve on this as time goes on, and as our farm becomes more of a Natural Farm. We are still in the early stages of the cross over. Fukuoka reaped 1000g per square meter, so be have a distance to go yet!
On Friday 16th May, the harvest was finished. Here you can see the harvested wheat being threshed. This machine is taken around all the local villages at harvest time. Fukuoka had a more simple machine that preserved the straw, so that it could be thrown back onto the field as mulch. Unfortunately this machine doesn't do that.
A successful end to the wheat season.