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You are here: Home / chipping potatoes / It’s Harvest Time!

It’s Harvest Time!

September 18, 2014 By Gold Dust Farms 3 Comments

Chipping potatoes being unloaded and going into a storage shed at Gold Dust Potatoes' Malin, Oregon facility.
It’s Harvest Time!

Summer is over.  While the roads fill with school buses, around the Klamath Basin they also fill with farm equipment.  The school yards fill with kids at recess while the fields fill with farm crews, swathers, bailers, combines and bulkers.  The warm days, green leaves clinging to the trees and calendar might say we’re all still in summer.  However, if you ask any kid what time of year it is, they’ll likely reply it’s fall.  And if a farmer doesn’t say it’s autumn, they’ll tell you it’s harvest time!

Walker Brothers started harvesting grain in the beginning of August.  Despite the smoky skies all summer long and the drought, the yields have been good.  The only real obstacle to wrapping up grain cutting has been waiting for a few fields to finish ripening.  So far our crews have been doing an excellent job of getting the grain cut and into storage, making it as streamlined a process as possible.

An organic wheat field on the Running Y Ranch near Klamath Falls, OR, needs to finish ripening.
A few test cuts have been done on this organic wheat field
Two combines harvest wheat in a field at the Running Y Ranch outside of Klamath Falls, Oregon.
Ohhhh, the Walker Brothers Claas Lexion is pulling ahead!
Walker Brothers' Claas Lexion 750 cutting a wheat field at the Running Y Ranch near Klamath Falls, Oregon.
Gotta’ love seeing a combine at work!
A grain harvester pours wheat into a grain cart on the Running Y Ranch.
Our combine filling one of our grain carts to the brim with wheat
A grain cart loads wheat into grain trucks on the Running Y Ranch, outside of Klamath Falls, Oregon.
And in turn, our grain carts fills our grain trucks!
An un-cut wheat field on the Running Y Ranch in Southern Oregon.
Next!

On Monday of last week (September 8th), as grain harvest worked nearer towards  ending, the first official day of potato harvest began.  Due to the nature of chipping potatoes, we often have some of the first potato bulkers in the field.  This year, along with the chippers, we’re also harvesting some beautiful organic table potatoes.  Again, despite the drought, our spuds are looking pretty good so far and with a week under our belt things are going smoothly in the field and at our storage sheds!  And as of the publishing of this post, we’re already a third of the way done.

An open row of chipping potatoes waiting to be harvested on the Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge lease lands.
Mmmm . . . chipping potatoes
A potato bulker harvests chipping potatoes and then loads them into a potato truck on the Tule Lake Wildlife Refuge near Tulelake, CA.
And that’s how you harvest chipping potatoes!
The Peninsula stands tall in the background while Walker Brothers harvest chipping potatoes near Tulelake, California.
The Tule Lake Wildlife Refuge lease lands are definitely a scenic place to grow potatoes
A potato trucks kicks up dust on a dirt road on the Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge near the Oregon-California border.
Go Spuds Go!
Chipping potatoes from the Tule Lake Wildlife Refuge leases are unloaded into a potato cellar at Gold Dust Potatoes, Malin, OR.
From field to storage
A photo showing a spud truck being unloaded and the equipment it takes to get the chipping potatoes into storage.
Another potato cellar is being filled with chippers from another field
Chipping potatoes are being sorted at Gold Dust Potatoes' Malin, OR, storage facility.
After being unloaded, the chipping potatoes are sorted
Chipping potatoes going into a storage cellar at Gold Dust Potato Processors' Malin, Oregon campus.
We won’t see these chipping potatoes again until they’re shipped

As if we didn’t have enough going on, if you listen closely, you can hear our potato processing plant running.  Semis with refrigerated trailers are idling outside, waiting for the crews to get potatoes loaded.  While it’s not running at full tilt just yet, the number of loads being shipped and the number of hours our shed crew will only increase from here on out.  And if you ask the office staff, one look at payroll will tell you we’re busy!

A semi-truck with a refrigerated trailer waits to be filled at Gold Dust Potato Processors' packing shed.
It looks fairly calm outside our packing shed . . .
Chipping potatoes being unloaded from a potato truck into Gold Dust Potato Processors' packing shed in Malin, OR.
Field fresh chipping potatoes getting ready for shipping
Four women manually sort chipping potatoes in Gold Dust Potato Processors' Malin, Oregon packing shed.
After the Odenberg sorter, our ladies give the chipping potatoes a manual inspection
An employee pulls potatoes before they're sacked at Gold Dust Potato Processors in Malin, Oregon.
One last chance to grab any spuds our customers don’t want
Chipping potatoes are piled into a large tote before being loaded into a truck at Gold Dust's potato packing shed.
Now THAT is a big sack of spuds!
An employee loads chipping potatoes into a refrigerated trailer in Malin, Oregon.
As you can see, there’s a lot of chipping potatoes in that reefer

Did we forget to mention we’re getting our fourth cutting of alfalfa wrapped up as well as get our straw put away?

A hay squeeze and truck move wheat straw bails on the Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge.
You gotta’ move the straw before you can haul it
A fourth cutting of alfalfa hay waits to be cut and bailed in a hay field near Malin, OR.
That’s a good-lookin’ fourth cutting of alfalfa

Even though harvest is one of our busiest times of year, it doesn’t mean there isn’t a little time for fun.  This year at the Tulelake Butte Valley Fair, some of our employees competed in the Hay Squeeze driving contest and the demolition derby.  Operating our trademark white with a red stripe squeeze was Toby Turner.  Though Toby mostly handles big bales, he did an excellent job managing the small bales and managed to earn 7th place.  In the demolition derby, the white and red theme was carried on to a beat up Lincoln that our farm mechanics, Don Sconce, Mark Smith and Tristen Wilson put together.  Don thrashed around the infield in the white and red beast, taking home 4th place.  Well done, gentlemen!

 

Hay squeezes from Klamath Basin farms are lined up for the hay squeeze competition for the 2014 Tulelake-Butte Valley Fair.
The competition is looking stiff
Toby Turner, Walker Brothers farm employee, is talking with a competitor at the Tulelake-Butte Valley Fair hay squeeze competition.
Toby is chatting up the competition
Toby Turner moves a unit of hay at the 2014 Tulelake Butte Valley Fair hay squeeze competition.
Go Toby Go!
Gold Dust Potato Processors and Walker Brothers farm sponsored a car in the 2014 Tulelake Butte Valley Fair demolition derby.
Ain’t that derby car a beauty?
Don Sconce sits in the driver's seat of a demolition derby car before the 2014 Tulelake Butte Valley Fair.
There’s Don’s game face
Tristen Wilson, TJ Chavez, John Walker, Emma Chavez, Don Sconce and Mark Smith pose with the Gold Dust demolition derby car at the 2014 Tulelake Butte Valley Fair.
Here’s Team Gold Dust! What a good lookin’ crew
Don Sconce drives the #19 derby car into the arena at the 2014 Tulelake Butte Valley Fair demolition derby.
A warrior enters the arena
A photo of Gold Dust car after the 2014 Tulelake-Butte Valley Fair demolition derby.
And this is what 4th place looks like. Good job, Don, Mark and Tristen!

As we’ve said in past posts about potato harvest, every year is a different adventure and this year will be another.  With any luck, it will end as smoothly as it’s started and everyone will finish safely and sanely.  Good luck to our crews in the fields, in the sheds  and in the offices – and thank you for your hard work and dedication during one of our busiest times of year!

And a special thank you to Katie Walker and Lexi Crawford for the additional photos of the Tulelake Fair!  Thanks, ladies!

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Filed Under: chipping potatoes, farm, Gold Dust Potato Processors, grain, Organic Potatoes, potato harvest, potato shipping, Running Y Ranch, walker brothers, wheat

Comments

  1. Nancy J Reece says

    September 19, 2014 at 11:45 am

    Love seeing the harvest progress! Beautiful fields, go Gold Dust!

  2. admin says

    September 19, 2014 at 3:43 pm

    Glad you liked the post! Thanks for stopping by, Nancy!

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