hello welcome to Kate's Ag today is very exciting because grandpa and i are going to go and
burn straw piles from the harrow and i actually did harrowing as well so you'll have to check
those videos out but won't this be fun grandpa
get yeah smoke yes
there's the green elevator and now we're driving by the 15 grain bins and the schoolhouse where
grandma billy lou went to school you used to harrow in the olden days no we never did
so that's sort of a relatively new practice well yeah it is in the last few years i don't
know we used to if we didn't use the straw spreader you just let the straw grow in one
row and then in the evening we'd i'd go out and burn the straw row when it got cooler
in the evening you could just light all the straw rows say you take a strip there's six
straw rows in it you it would burn all night just burn all the way around wouldn't burn
it wouldn't burn the rest of the stubble oh really yeah with the heavy straw row you couldn't
get the grain drills through it yes and that's why we harrow is to break up all of the chaff
and kind of everything that's left behind the combine even with the straw choppers there
can be kind of big piles of straw that we want to spread out so that the drills can
get into the ground and into the soil for seeding you rake it at an angle all the time
and you spread the straw evenly over the field yes and you really should do it when it's
warm because a lot of it breaks up the straw
and the harrow works better if there's a lot of straw caught in it to spread it around
so at the very end of a field when you pick your harrow up a bunch of straw drops out
and that's the piles that were burning I helped harrow that field and that was spring wheat
i believe yeah i think so and that's the field that has all the little lumps left because
there was just so much wheat laying on the ground because the sawfly the harrow just
couldn't get everything
so this is the big pile of straw we will be burning
oh it's burning oh this is exciting this is the first straw pile i ever have seen being
burned i think it's out so how does this work that's so cool
oh my goodness
oh my gosh that is cool
how do you think the burns going so far grandpa going good that'd be a nice burn this is what
the fire looks like right now it is maybe a quarter way up kind of crazy and very cool
i've never burned a straw pile before so this is a first time experience the fire seems
to be staying pretty contained which is really good how would you say it's going so far dad
well it hasn't gotten out of control so far so it's going okay that's wonderful yes it
is how many years have you been burning straw piles and harrowing for would you say i don't
know Kate we've had it for a while we've done it for quite a while but you don't always
do it just if you got a lot of straw and stuff incorporate knock the wheat out of the heads
that it didn't get you know that were laying on the ground incorporate some wheat seed
so you burn quite a few straw piles in your day
oh yes grandpa usually burns them so he's out today helping us
oh wow this is about to get fun
it's definitely going by a lot faster now
this is the good kind of fire that we like not the ones we don't start it seems really
well contained too this is so cool i'm blown away we'll have to do this more often dad
you only get to do it when you got piles Kate
that is interesting and normally this will kill all the stuff that was in this pile because
of the heat so you won't have any weeds right here anyways even on the ground do you ever
burn the fields for weed control i've burned it before but again then you got a big fire
going on and you need to be careful with it what's it like when you're burning an entire
field you just start at the downwind end so it works into the field does it get really
big flames well it depends on how much it's got the burns you know it burned good along
that road you know in places i'll go get a rake oh my gosh look at that some time to
turn around which i went i didn't give myself enough time oh i'm nervous yeah i went on
the road a little bit there that's okay i should have watched my guidance line a little
bit better and i didn't but it's all a learning experience in every corner i get just a bit
better at knowing what not to do in this case
that's pretty neat can i try that do you just grab a bit of it yeah don't leave the rake
in there so it melts and catches on fire it's warm by that I know it is
open that up a little bit or no well i don't care just don't drag it way out into the end
just open it up so air can get into it a little bit
its kind of warm gosh my eyes are watering it looks like it's getting most of the inside
of the pile
i get this part again this is awesome maybe i could go down here
yeah pull that that stuff like that over yeah this is fun this is so much fun to go down
there and work your way up so you don't have to then give your rake a rest
get out of it for a while let the rake cool off
oh look the dirt has burn marks where i set the rake do you see that well that's how hot
that's getting you don't want to wreck that new rake
that's pretty cool you have to admit okay just so you know i'm not worried about the
metal i'm worried about the plastic handle that you got on the rake yeah so let it you
know don't go in there for a second i've gotten more of the edge well now you got quite a
bit of hot stuff to get to the end right now so just reach as far as you can and roll it
over
gets warm yeah it does
painful almost it's worse than like onions for making your eyes cry that one really started
to burn what are your thoughts today grandpa about burning the straw pile oh i think it'd
be a good video yes so people know what you'd what you're burning it for and what breaks
up some of the stubble when you rake it so i think it was a good video i think you get
a good picture there yes and the flames were very cool well thank you grandpa okay you're
welcome make sure to like and subscribe to learn more about the process farmers go through
to eventually grow or raise the product that will end up on your table thank you again
for watching bye i would say that was a successful day burning straw yeah
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