Wheat People

To Market, To Market

Marion elevator, 1998.

"Our Co-Op employees really go that extra mile during harvest. . . . They put in long hours, almost working around the clock at times, trucking out during the night and moving grain around."
--Marge Summervill, Marion, 1998.

Harvest is the most important time of the year for rural residents. It means a paycheck for everyone--farmers, custom cutters, and local businesses.

The local grain elevator becomes Grand Central Station during harvest. People, trucks, and wheat constantly move in and out.

Elevator offices bustle with people sampling and testing grain while long lines of trucks form outdoors. Some drivers climb out of their trucks to get the latest news and catch a cool breeze.

What happens to wheat at an elevator?
	First, the loaded truck drives onto a large platform scale outside the elevator office where a worker records its weight. A probe is plunged into the load to take a sample of grain. Left: Duane Reif, Great Bend Cooperative at Boyd, 1998.
Next, the trucker drives to the elevator and dumps wheat through floor grates into a pit. At the same time, workers in the office test the wheat sample for moisture content (wheat spoils if it's too wet) and test weight (good kernels are plump and heavy). If these factors are unacceptable, the elevator passes on a dock, or price cut, to the farmer. Right: Workers unload a semi-truck filled with grain at the Mulvane elevator, 1998.
	Finally, the truck returns to the platform to be weighed again. The trucker gets a ticket listing the number of bushels and the test information, and quickly drives off to return to the field. Left: Betty Wallace and Dana Parsons visit with a local farmer in the Cargill elevator office at Cleveland, 1998.

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