Wheat harvest in the Palouse, a region of rolling hills that spans the border between Idaho and Washington. The Palouse has the most productive wheat-growing conditions in the USA, with harvests this year averaging over 100 bushels/acre in the area between Pullman, WA, and Moscow, ID. The silty loess soil, good drainage, elevation, and dry summers with cool nights form the ideal growing conditions. The wheat here is planted perpendicular to slope on steep inclines, up to +45°, and is harvested with specially modified combines that adjust the slope with outriggers to keep their 30ft. wide cutting heads from tipping over.
Much of the Palouse is rented to people who farm large tracts of land. Landowners here are reluctant to sell, and increasingly lease out their fields to others who farm on an industrial scale. This particular field west of Pullman is being harvested by the Boyer family, who plant/harvest 40,000 acres along the border between Idaho and Washington. They own a third of that acreage and have 7 combine harvesters, working in unison during harvest season.
- Filename
- STNMTZ_20160807_00846.tif
- Copyright
- ©2016 George Steinmetz
- Image Size
- 8688x5792 / 144.0MB
- Contained in galleries
- 21st Century Agriculture
