Wheat harvest in United States

The common types of wheats grown in the United States are spring wheat, planted in the spring for fall harvest and winter wheat planted in the fall for spring wheat.

In the northern Great Plains winters are too severe for winter wheat. Wheat is planted in the spring as soon as the ground is dry enough to be worked with power equipment and the threat of frost is over. This is spring wheat which usually sown in March for harvest in autumn.

The United States has been consistently the largest exporter of wheat for decades. About 60 million acres of wheat are harvested each year in the United States.

Many years ago, the common method of harvesting grains was the binder, which may possibly still be used on some small farms. Binders have been replaced nearly everywhere by combines, large and small.

These machines cut and thresh the crop and are usually self-propelled. It having the obvious advantage that no tractor is needed to pull it. It is also more maneuverable and can be easily transported by truck and interchangeable heads., can be adapted to multicrop harvesting easily. Spring wheat may be cut windrowed or swathed before thrashing.

After combining, most spring and winter wheat is either stored in the farms for a time or promptly taken by truck to local elevators it is loaded on railway cars and carried to terminal markets.

Each year better highways and larger payloads increase the distances wheat can be hauled economically by truck.

Five kinds of wheat are commonly grown in the United States. They are hard red winter wheat, soft red winter wheat, hard red spring wheat, white wheat, and durum wheat.

Wheat harvest in United States