Life in Christian County, Kentucky... More About Trees and Plants... The Rural Life...
Across Christian County, and indeed, across America, another wheat crop is well underway. In Christian County, virtually all wheat is winter wheat. It is planted in October, and the seeds sprout and grow until the weather gets cold.
The wheat goes dormant when the cold days of winter arrive. It begins growing again when the warmer weather of early spring rouses it. Farmers usually apply some nitrogen fertilizer in February.
By June or July (depending on the variety and the weather) the wheat is mature and ready for harvest. Combines gather the grain from the wheat stalks, and trucks transport the grain from the field to a drying and storage facility, either on the farm or at a grain elevator.
Then the wheat straw is baled, and soybeans are sowed in the stubble. The soybeans mature in the fall and are harvested before winter wheat is sowed again. The soybeans help prepare the soil for the next crop because, like all legumes, they are nitrogen-fixing plants.
And so we are fed with the bounty of the land.
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